Balances on loan private individuals’ loans in Estonia have begun to grow at accelerating rates. According to the Bank of Estonia, last August the balance on private individuals’ loans stood at 7.23 billion euros, up 3.5% year on year. Growth…
Due to a reduction in labour taxes, average net (after tax) wages in the first half of 2015 in Estonia and Latvia rose at a quicker pace than gross wages. In Lithuania the average net wages rose a little bit…
The dual-track economic picture in Eastern (including Central) Europe will persist over the next two years. Conflict-plagued Russia and Ukraine will show continued weakness. In Russia, recession will linger during 2016 too, as plunging oil prices rebound only weakly and…
A survey by SEB shows that in terms of current income levels and property prices, residents in the Baltic capitals can now become owners of bigger flats than a year ago. The SEB home purchasing power index* has improved thanks…
Growth of house prices one of the fastest in Europe House prices have grown faster than households’ incomes Surge in supply should slow future price growth Growth of house prices one of the fastest in Europe Of the 27 countries…
Economic statistics for the past week revealed that the Estonian economy grew a lot more last year than was previously thought. The growth of GDP in the second quarter can also be regarded as being good. At the same time,…
Last week several updates on some important economic indicators were published. Unfortunately the news were mainly negative – industrial production is falling, orders are decreasing and employee’s pay is not growing from the company’s increasing income but from investments. Industry…
Cheaper energy behind deflation • Consumer prices dropped further in August • Cheaper energy behind the decline in prices • Inflation expected at -0.2% in 2015 and +1.9% in 2016 August deflation numbers were in line with our expectations. In…
Why worry about wage growth? Wage growth accelerated again Not sustainable in the longer term Exports have to recover Wage growth accelerated again Gross wage growth has been around or above 5% since 2011. In the first half of 2015,…
The housing affordability index (HAI) increased to 133.2 in Vilnius, 151.8 in Riga, and 150.6 in Tallinn In Tallinn, affordability rose marginally by 1.4 points in the second quarter this year compared with the same period in 2014, due to…
The ending week will be remembered by many for the nervous decline of the stock markets. Despite these uncertain times, the global economy is on track for growth. In Estonia, initial data published for the economic performance of businesses in…
Data from Statistics Estonia show that the growth in average gross wages accelerated to 5.8% in the second quarter of 2015, from 4.5% in the first quarter. Tax changes that took effect this year supported the 7.3% rise in the…
Data from Statistics Estonia show that the consumer price index was 0.1% lower in June than a year earlier and 0.2% lower than a month earlier. Preliminary estimates show that harmonised consumer price index inflation in the euro area slowed…
In Tallinn, affordability rose marginally by 0.9 point in the first quarter this year compared with the same period in 2014, due to a 36-basis-point-decrease in interest rates. In Riga, the HAI increased by 2.1 points because wage growth outpaced…
Rapid inflation, both before and after the economic crisis, made borrowing favourable in each of the Baltic States and reduced the point of depositing money – due to the rapid decrease in the purchasing power of money, real interest rates…