OREANDA-NEWS. May 30, 2014. Prime Minister Taavi Roivas’ ends two-day visit to Munich with a purpose to promote economic cooperation between Estonia and Bavaria.

Roivas met with Minister-President in Bavaria Horst Seehofer today. Roivas said at the meeting that the relations between Estonia and Germany in various areas are close and the Estonian entrepreneurs are interested in cooperating with their German partners.

“I am sure that the similar work culture of Estonia and Germany will contribute to the promotion of bilateral cooperation,” Roivas said. “Many Estonian enterprises are also interested in business relations with Bavaria and my visit will hopefully help to contribute to this.”

Seehofer and Roivas agreed that the internal market of the European Union must be further developed. Free trade agreement with the USA was also favoured.

Roivas characterised Estonia as an enterprise friendly country, which has a successful liberal economy, whose budget is in balance, whose external debt is small, competitiveness high and level of corruption low.

The opportunities offered by information and communication technologies were discussed more thoroughly at the Prime Ministers’ meeting. Roivas introduced Estonia as a developed e-Government.

“Estonia is attractive as a place for the development of public e-services,” Roivas confirmed. “E-solutions should be introduced more widely across the European Union. This would reduce bureaucracy and make the work more efficient.”

Roivas and the business delegation had several economic meetings during the two-day visit to Munich that ended today. The Association of the Bavarian Economy, the Chamber of Industry and Commerce for Munich and Upper Bavaria and Munich Network – an organisation created by the technology industry of Bavarian capital to promote innovation and entrepreneurship – were visited.

“Estonia is an attractive business environment for foreign investors and companies,” Roivas said when meeting with the Bavarian operators from the business world. “This is also confirmed by a poll that was carried out by the German-Baltic Chamber of Commerce in April this year, showing that the German companies consider Estonia to be the most attractive country for foreign investments out of 21 countries.”

The same poll also showed that 94 % of Germans, who have already invested in Estonia, would do it again.

The visit also included meetings with the BMW Group management. At the main office of BMW Group, the development of electric cars was under a more thorough discussion and Roivas gave an overview of the Estonia’s electric cars project during the meeting.

The Prime Minister was accompanied by a ten-member business delegation, representing companies in various operational areas in Estonia, such as information technology, construction, logistics, and energy. The visit to Bavaria was Prime Minister Roivas’ first working visit with a business delegation.