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Fits.me Scores Investment from Entrepreneurs Fund

marju.mihkelsoo@eas.ee (Marju Mihkelsoo) — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 14:02:23 GMT

ERR - Fits.me, a company that develops robotic fitting technology for clothing sales over the internet, has received the financial backing of the London-based Entrepreneurs Fund.

Without specifying, the company said the investment was “seven figures.”

According to Fits.me, clothing sales make up the largest share of online shopping. By 2020, they said, 25 percent of clothing sales will be made over the internet.

Vopak EOS Plans Baltic Assembly Line for GE Locomotives

marju.mihkelsoo@eas.ee (Marju Mihkelsoo) — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 07:07:54 GMT

ERR - Estonian oil terminal operator Vopak EOS plans to begin assembling General Electric's (GE) locomotives in the Baltics.

The company's subsidiary, Estonian Railway Services (ERS), is testing GE's new diesel-powered Evolution TE33A, which is expected to replace thousands of aging 2TE locomotives in Russia, reported Eesti Päevaleht.

"It is cheaper to put the locomotives together in our own depot than to transport them from Kazakhstan to Estonia through Russia,” said Arnout Lugtmeijer, CEO of Vopak EOS.

The company plans to purchase 10 to 14 Evolutions in the next two to three years. But other companies in the Baltics are in the coming years in need of many more replacements - around 200.

McAfee Report: Estonia a 'Frontrunner' in Cyber Security

marju.mihkelsoo@eas.ee (Marju Mihkelsoo) — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 07:00:26 GMT

ERR - A new report commissioned by the computer security company McAfee ranks Estonia as having a reliable cyber security structure.

Finland, Sweden and Israel were deemed the leaders of cyber security, all scoring 4.5 out of five. Estonia, with 4, was placed in the same group with Denmark, France, Germany, Netherlands, Spain, UK and the US.

“The massive denial-of-service attacks against Estonia in 2007 alerted the world to what a cyber-attack might look like, although the consequences were not nearly as bad as the international press suggested,” the report said.

“Many countries are now looking to Estonia for cyber-security leadership, even if Canadian expert Rafal Rohozinski stresses that 'Estonia is really too small a country to be a case study,'” the report said. “But it is clearly easier to get organized in a small country.”

Molycorp Silmet Expands, Becoming Largest Producer of Niobium

marju.mihkelsoo@eas.ee (Marju Mihkelsoo) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 11:28:34 GMT

ERR -The US-incorporated producer of rare earth metals Molycorp Silmet, based in northeastern Estonia, may soon become the world's largest producer of niobium, a rare earth metal used in electronics, aviation and energy production.

"When we finish our niobium project [in February], we will be the world's largest producer of pure niobium," said company director David O'Brock.

This year, Molycorp Silmet plans to invest 14 million euros into a new production line and lab, creating around fifty new jobs in the Sillamäe region, reported ETV. "The world market demands increasingly purer compounds, and we need to respond," said O'Brock.

Tartu-Based Company Makes Advances in Lung Cancer Treatment

marju.mihkelsoo@eas.ee (Marju Mihkelsoo) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 11:26:47 GMT

ERR - Estonian researchers have developed a new technology that allows for faster and cheaper production of amrubicin, a key ingredient of lung cancer medications.

The Tartu-based company TBD-Biodiscovery has 25 employees and was founded in 2006. Three years and 800,000 euros later company representatives say they have created an attractive alternative for producing the drug, reported ETV.

The new method entails biological not chemical production of amrubicin. "The old method, which was invented by the Japanese, is a classical synthesis, with 16 to 17 stages. It is complicated, expensive, and creates toxic byproducts. Our method is much shorter, simpler, somewhat cheaper and hopefully makes the product more accessible for the patient," said Olga Tshubrik, the company's director of development.

Mitsubishi Seeks Baltic Port Link With Russia

marju.mihkelsoo@eas.ee (Marju Mihkelsoo) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 12:10:48 GMT

ERR - Automobile manufacturer Mitsubishi is reportedly choosing between a harbor in Tallinn and one in Riga to establish a new transit route for transporting its knock-down kits to an assembly plant in Russia.

The potential partner in Tallinn would be the Muuga Container Terminal. Mitsubishi will make a decision in early February by the latest, reported Eesti Päevaleht.

Planning to triple production in Russia's Kaluga Oblast, Mitsubishi freight would bring Muuga an extra 30,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU) per year. That is about two month's worth of Muuga's current shipping volume.

Subway Fast Food Chain Hungering for Estonia

marju.mihkelsoo@eas.ee (Marju Mihkelsoo) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 07:36:11 GMT

ERR - One of the world's largest fast food restaurant chains, Subway, is planning to enter the Estonian market, opening its first restaurant in the country in the coming months, according to bi-weekly business newsletter news2biz Poland.

The US-based franchise opened 170 new restaurants in Central and Eastern Europe in 2011. There are now about 300 restaurants in Russia and the business is rapidly expanding across Poland.

This year, the company aims to raise its total number of establishments in the region from the current 407 to 600, Äripäev reported.

Estonia's Export to Finland Outstrips Imports

marju.mihkelsoo@eas.ee (Marju Mihkelsoo) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 07:05:08 GMT

ERR - The Finnish Customs Administration said the country imported more From Estonia than it exported in the first nine months of 2011 - a change from a trend that persisted for most of last decade.

Total Finnish export to Estonia was around 1 billion euros from January to October, having grown more than 9 percent compared to the same period in 2010. But import grew 25 percent to reach 1.3 billion euros, Helsingin Sanomat reported.

The largest trade surplus for Finland with respect to Estonia was in 2006 and 2007, when export exceeded import by 500 million euros. .

Estonian Becomes Vice-President of Scania

marju.mihkelsoo@eas.ee (Marju Mihkelsoo) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 13:54:37 GMT

ERR - Estonian Janno Karu, a 20-year veteran of the Swedish-based automotive manufacturer Scania, has been offered a vice-president position with the global enterprise.

“This proposal was somewhat surprising, because I had been leading the Scania Finans AB Finnish and Baltic branches for only two years,” Karu told Äripäev.

“It would have been nice to continue in the previous position slightly longer, yet the challenges of vice-presidency are interesting and I accepted the offer,” said Karu, who will be tasked with managing, supporting and creating strategies for the company's global sales and services as of February.

Standard & Poor’ endorses Estonia's country rating at present high level

marju.mihkelsoo@eas.ee (Marju Mihkelsoo) — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 22:00:00 GMT

BNS - In an information released on Friday the Standard & Poor’s rating agency confirmed the Estonian country rating at the present high level of AA-, the Finance Ministry said.

Due to the debt crisis risks the outlook of the rating is negative, the agency said.

The agency said the reasons of the high rating were Estonia's politically stable environment, effective control of public sector expenditures and a low debt burden as well as a flexible private sectors, all of which help manage with negative influences of the external environment. The possibility of weakening of the European and eurozone economies are seen as the main risks of the country rating.

Finance Minister Jurgen Ligi agreed with Standard and Poor's assessment concerning Estonia's achievements as well as the main risks for the economy.

But Ligi said that it was questionable whether the rating agency's more general messages were unambiguously understood and justified.

"It is difficult to see how fiscal consolidation could threaten Europe's economic growth compared with the mistrust caused by slack budget policy," Ligi said. "Trust, stable economic environment and well-organized state finances will remain the most important preconditions for the restoration of sustainable growth."

"Naturally people deal with issues of competiveness and structural reforms in Europe, but this does not mitigate the need for the organization of state finances," the minister added. "Already now the eurozone seems to be considerably stronger than the economies of some other big economies and reforms both on the member countries as well as on the European level are moving in the right direction."

Standard & Poor raised the Estonian country rating to the level AA- on August 9, 2011