Estonia's port in Sillamae launched the construction of a container terminal that will be completed in late 2009 and handle freight moving from east to west. The port's chairman, Tiit Vahi, said that Estonia will require such a terminal in the future despite the opposite opinion from top government officials (who claim that the future of freight handling is in the north-south direction). Vahi said the terminal will have an 800,000 TEU capacity.
Lithuania's Apranga group said there is ample room for expansion in the retail clothing market and hopes to gain a leading position in Estonia over the next several years. "We still have a lot of unfinished work in the Baltic countries, where the clothes market is excellent in business terms," said CEO Rimantas Perveneckas, adding that if the company didn't act now the niche would be occupied by competitors. Apranga, which cooperates with Spain's Inditex, is the number one clothing retailer in Lithuania and Latvia. In 2008 and the first half of next year it will open 43-49 new stores and close down 8-9 stores in the Baltic countries. Perveneckas said Apranga is eyeing the Belarusian market.
A board member of Inbox Internet, which operates Latvia's most popular Web site, said that the Internet's share of the advertising market will continue to grow in the future 's from some 8.3 percent this year to 11 percent in 2010. Andris Grikis said the higher ad revenues on the Web is fostered by the growing number of Internet users and expansion of overall Internet coverage. Latvia's media advertising market last year rose 24 percent to 93.9 million lats (133.6 million euros), with the largest share (34.9 percent) commanded by television, followed by newspapers (22 percent) and magazines (17.3 percent), according to statistics.
