OREANDA-NEWS. November 17, 2010. Estonia's gross domestic product grew by 4.7 percent in the third quarter of this year compared to the same period of 2009, the national statistics office reports.

The GDP of the third quarter was above all influenced by the growth of value added in manufacturing created due to a strong increase in exports, Statistics Estonia said. The sales of manufacturing production on the domestic market increased as well, indicating an improvement in domestic demand. Domestic sales of manufacturing production increased last in the first quarter of 2008.

According to preliminary calculations the gross value added produced by the industrial sector as a whole increased by 14 percent, and without taking the economic activity of construction into account, even by 23 percent. Besides manufacturing, the industrial sector includes also mining, electricity, gas and water supply, and construction activities. In construction, the output of which is mainly targeted at the domestic market, the generated value added showed a continued downward trend.

In addition to the manufacturing sector, growth of the value added created in the wholesale and retail trade and transport, storage and communications activities also had a bigger impact on the GDP growth. Growth of the value added in financial intermediation accelerated mainly due to a strong growth in the net interest income.

The value added of households, non-profit institutions and the general government sector decreased, preliminary figures show.

Quarter on quarter, the seasonally and working-day adjusted GDP increased by 0.5 percent in the third quarter, by 1.9 percent in the second quarter and by 1.1 percent in the first quarter. Thus, in the comparison of successive quarters, the GDP growth rate slowed down somewhat in the third quarter.

Estonia's GDP grew by 3.1 percent year-on-year in the second quarter.

Before showing year-on-year growth in the second quarter, the Estonian economy last expanded on annual comparison in the fourth quarter of 2007.