OREANDA-NEWS. SEB lowered Estonia's economic forecast for the current year from 1.5 per cent to 1.3 per cent. The economic growth expectation for next year dropped from 3.3 per cent to 2.6 per cent. This is a result of decreasing investments and weak export growth.

“Estonia's economic growth will reach a modest 1.3 per cent in 2013, due to decreasing investments and weak export growth, and partly due to the weak state of the Finnish economy. In 2014, improving external demand shall increase economic growth to 2.6 per cent and in 2015 to 2.9 per cent. In the near future, Estonia's short-term economic growth will remain below its potential (growth of 3-4 per cent) - growth is held back by continuously decreasing volumes of EU Structural Funds in the coming years,” said Ruta Arumae, SEB Chief Economist, summarising the new forecast that was published today.

This autumn, almost all Central and Eastern European countries are showing signs of economic recovery similar to Western Europe, so the low was in the second quarter of 2013. The recovery of the economies of Eastern European countries in the next few years shall be modest. The situation differs from country to country - growth in Poland will recover following an unexpected serious slowdown, Russia is on a slower growth trajectory due to its deepening need for reforms when compared to the pre-crisis period, and Ukraine is forced to devalue its currency to come out of the crisis. Latvia and Lithuania will continue to have the quickest growth in the region: Latvia at 4.8 per cent in both coming years, and Lithuania at 3.5 per cent next year and 4.5 per cent the year after that.