Analytics, Economics, Estonia, EU – Baltic States, Financial Services

The small Baltic state's economy is forecast to have grown by 8% during 2011, according to the EU's official statistics body, informs LETA.

That's more than five times faster growth than the European Union as a whole.

But Estonia is still regaining the ground it lost during a financial crisis that struck it and its Baltic neighbours in 2008-9, when a property bubble burst spectacularly, causing the economy to shrink and unemployment to rocket to 18 percent, BBC notes.

And with the eurozone crisis still unresolved, the renewed growth could slow once again.

To many observers, Estonia's economic resurgence has been quite startling.

Finance Minister Jurgen Ligi, from the governing centre-right Reform party, puts it down to a refocusing of the economy, away from domestic consumption – which fuelled the boom years – towards exports.

It's also no coincidence that Estonia has by far the lowest national debt in the EU – 6.7% in 2010. That's because successive governments have focused on balancing the budget rather than spending more in the good times, unlike most other European countries.