OREANDA-NEWS.  November 26, 2013. SEB’s business clients in Jogeva County do not see big growth numbers for 2014, but at the same time there are signs of the stable development of entrepreneurship, shown by the survey “Jogeva County Business Barometer 2014”, conducted among SEB business clients there.

“In the last four years, the number of entrepreneurs has grown by 45 per cent in Jogeva County, and the county has a traditionally strong agriculture, fishing, and forestry sector. Many enterprises are cautious when it comes to the estimates of 2014 and instead seeing small, but stable growth,” commented Riho Unt, Chairman of the Management Board of SEB Pank.

Five per cent of enterprises in Jogeva County belong to the so-called group of optimists in terms of turnover growth: they estimate the turnover increasing by at least 15 per cent. However, 90 per cent of the respondents see turnover as increasing, mostly in agriculture, fishing, and the forestry sector.

It is the same on the export front: Only five per cent of the enterprises in Jogeva County are planning on entering new export markets or expanding their activities on existing export markets.

Forty per cent of Jogeva County enterprises plan investments of over EUR 30,000, while in the survey a year ago the number was 57 per cent of enterprises – the activity is highest in the transport and logistics sector.

Fifteen per cent of enterprises surveyed in Jogeva County are planning on creating new jobs, while several enterprises are planning to decrease the number of employees, so the balance becomes negative according to the estimates.

Next year, half of the enterprises in Jogeva County are putting an emphasis on innovation, whereas the industry and energy sector is the most active.

This autumn, SEB conducted its second counselling programme across Estonia, in the framework of which representatives from the bank visited 900 Estonian small and medium-sized enterprises in 15 counties to help them prepare a financial analysis for next year.

As part of this counselling project SEB also compiled a survey, called the Business Barometer, which was to map out the entrepreneurs’ expectations for the year 2014. The entrepreneurs assessed future turnover developments, changes in the number of staff, export and innovation plans, and proposed investments in their companies in 2014.