Estonia, EU – Baltic States, Forum, Internet, Technology

Taavi Rõivas at ASEM Summit in Milan. Photo: valitsus.ee

The Prime Minister said in his speech that Estonia stands for increasing trade with Asia. Rõivas said that the free movement of goods, capital, services and people should be accompanied by the cross-border movement of data.

"In the digital world, the size of countries, and the distance between them makes no difference. Estonia has long-term experiences in the field of e-services, and we see that using them loses bureaucratic barriers, significantly increases the economic efficiency and creates competitive advantages," said Rõivas.

The Prime Minister said that the whole world saw that internet banking services resulted in fall of bank service prices and gave an impetus to economic growth. "Similarly, cross-country introduction of digital signatures creates prerequisites for greater economic activity," said Rõivas.

Estonia believes that the launch of the Digital Single Market can significantly save time and money.

"In Europe alone, the launch of the digital single market would bring 250 million euros worth of additional economic growth. In Estonia, each person saves a whole working week worth of time a year by using e-services – this is an estimated two percent of the total gross domestic product," said Rõivas.

"We can only imagine how big an economic effect we would achieve by creating a digital single market between Europe and Asia," added the Prime Minister.