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Vice President of the Heritage Foundation, which compiles the Index of Economic Freedom, Jack Spencer and Research Manager Anthony Kim are on a visit to Tallinn in order to recognise Estonia for its good result in this year’s report.

The representatives of the Heritage Foundation introduce the index of 2015, in which Estonia has risen from last year’s 11th place to 8th place among 178 countries.

Prime Minister Rõivas said at the meeting that Estonia takes the internationally recognised indices very seriously.

“It is positive that Estonia’s liberal and consistent economic policy has borne fruit and brought Estonia among the most competitive countries in the world,” Rõivas said and added that the Government will continue with the current policy that contributes to economic freedom.

“Economic freedom is strongly related to society’s prosperity – the freer the economy, the better the business and society at large,” Rõivas noted.

According to the representatives of the Heritage Foundation, Estonia has made the right choices and they recommend continuing with the same policy as used by Estonia so far – this means conservative fiscal policy and only small intervention of the Government in the economy.

The Index of Economic Freedom is a ranking table, which has been compiled by the Heritage Foundation and the Wall Street Journal since 1995. A total of 178 countries have been reflected in the table of 2015.

Estonia ranks 8th place, meaning that its position has improved compared to 11th place in 2014. The score increased by 0.9 to 76.8. Estonia continues to belong to the group of mostly free economies.

The highest evaluated economic freedom continues to be in Hong Kong, Singapore, and New Zealand. Lithuania raised by six places to 15th place in the overall ranking and Latvia by five places to 37th place.

Among 43 evaluated European countries, Estonia has ranked as high as 2nd place (in 2014, it was 4th), only Switzerland remains ahead of us. We are followed by Ireland and Denmark; Estonia’s result is significantly better than the average of the evaluated countries.

With regard to Estonia, the continuous improvement of market opening supported by a balance fiscal policy is being approved.

Better results were identified in the following categories: Freedom from corruption – it is highlighted that judicial system is independent; Fiscal freedom – the tax burden has slightly fallen to 32.5 % of GDP (in 2014, it was 32.8 %); Trade freedom – the EU members have a 1.0 percent average tariff rate; Business freedom – the restriction of renewable energy charges is being approved; Labour freedom – the influence of the Employment Contracts Act on reducing the costs of dismissing employees is still highlighted.

Weaker results were detected only in the following category: Government spending – it is noted that government spending equals to 39.5 % of GDP (in 2014, it was 38 %). Public debt has slightly increased; previously, it was below 10 %, not it is 11 % of GDP.

The position of Estonia has remained unchanged in the following categories: property rights, investment freedom, and financial freedom.