Baltic States – CIS, Estonia, EU – Baltic States, Markets and Companies, Technology

Last week's news of the opening of the Indian IT group HCL Technologies' office in Tallinn is a precedent that could arouse interest and engender trust in Estonia in more and more foreign companies, CEO of Mainor Ulemiste Margus Nolvak said.

"We are currently working more actively with Russian, Ukrainian, German, British and Indian companies. We have agent networks in those countries. We also do a lot of cooperation with Enterprise Estonia who showcases the Estonian business environment as a whole," Nolvak said.

He singled out Russia, Ukraine and the UK as the most important markets. "Eastern businesses wish to expand to Estonia mostly because the economic sanctions currently in effect in Russia inhibit their sales on European Union markets and harm their reliability in the eyes of western markets," he said adding that because of the unstable economic environment many of them are contemplating expansion to Estonia.

"In addition, we're busily working with British technology companies. So far British businesses haven't looked much in this direction. One stumbling block is air connections, but at the same time there are not a few advantages: maintenance costs, real estate costs and labor costs are very low. Furthermore, we're fluent in English which is to their liking," he observed.

According to Nolvak concrete negotiations are underway with several foreign companies. "Some talks are in the initial phase and some in the middle phase, but there aren't any new arrivals just round the corner," he said.

To promote international sales, Mainor Ulemiste has hired a team to attract foreign companies together with Technopolis Ulemiste.

Ulemiste City is being developed by Technopolis Ulemiste that is majority owned by the listed Finnish group Technopolis and in turn owns one third of the project, and by Mainor Ulemiste that has a two thirds stake. The campus is today home to more than 300 companies with about 6,000 employees.