President Karis calls on American entrepreneurs to invest in Estonia

Attending the US-Baltic Strategic Investment Summit in New York, President Alar Karis and his Baltic counterparts have called on American entrepreneurs to invest in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

“Estonia is one of the world’s freest countries, and one in which it is very easy to do business,” he remarked. “The number of successful, rapidly growing companies it has produced stands as proof of that. Per capita, we have more start-ups whose value has topped a billion dollars than anywhere else in the world.”

President Karis described Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania as dependable Member States of the European Union that enjoy extensive economic freedom, straightforward taxation systems and high levels of digitalisation and transparency. He confirmed that American investments are protected on NATO soil.

Asked why companies should invest in the Baltic States, President Karis referred to the region’s recent history. “We launched market-economy reforms in the early 1990s, and our rapid growth and the rise in our standard of living since then have been in no small part due to our strong ties to the Nordic countries and the United States,” he said. “We joined the European Union and NATO almost 20 years ago, and we have built up our economies on the basis of economic freedoms.”

The Estonian head of state also highlighted the role of internationalisation and cross-border investments. “Successful companies must think and act globally,” he said. “There is simply no other way of doing business.”

President Karis further spoke of Estonia as a digital nation and the opportunities this presents. “There are only a handful of public services in Estonia which are not online, which is why there are so few things left that cannot be done remotely,” he said. “This means that setting up and managing a company is easy from anywhere in the world. We have an e-residency programme for non-residents, which makes it possible for them to access secure digital solutions. As a result, doing business in Estonia is something that is available to almost everyone in the world.”