Alcohol, Employment, Estonia, Financial Services, Legislation, Markets and Companies

"Of course the state's inadequate alcohol policy is affecting our business and undermining competitiveness. We are losing out the most not as a result of trade across the southern border, because what we lose in domestic sales we sell on the border, but as a result of the demise of cross-border trade in the north, which used to make up 25-35% of our sales of beer and low-alcohol beverages earlier," A. Le Coq CEO Tarmo Noop told BNS.

A. Le Coq has had to make people redundant in production, sales, logistics and the administration alike.

Also Jaan Harms, board member of rival beverage maker Saku Olletehas, said that the present government's excise policy has made them very concerned and they are keeping a close eye on the political situation.

"At this point we have coped by rearranging things, we last adjusted our employee numbers in the first half of 2017 and we haven't had to resort to layoffs at this point. We are supported by the fact that we have been able to export approximately half of the output of Saku Olletehas in recent years. Our production operations here, however, may suffer a substantial negative impact from the disappearance of Finnish tourists and their purchases from Estonia, because that will not be made up for by anything else," Harms said.

"This negative impact will be evident not only to producers, but to several related fields from travel services to retail. We very much hope that the government will now subject the difficult situation in the economy to an analysis and will discuss lowering of excise duties to the level of the beginning of 2017," Harms said.