Estonia scores big on economic freedom

TALLINN (BNS) - Estonia, while placing four steps lower than a year before in the 2000 Index of Economic Freedom published by the U.S. Heritage Foundation and Wall Street Journal, has improved its score.

This Baltic state ranked 22nd among "mostly free" countries with a score of 2.20, sharing its place with the Bahamas, Czech Republic, Finland and Germany, and ahead of such countries as Denmark, Norway and Sweden.

Estonia and the Czech Republic are well ahead of other former Communist countries in terms of economic freedom, even though Latvia, ranking 44th with a score of 2.65, and Lithuania in 61st place with a score of 2.90 have considerably improved their performance.

The compilers of the index took into account restrictions on trade, taxation, monetary and banking policies, government intervention in the economy, capital flows and foreign investment, wage and price controls, property rights, and black market.

The 2000 Index of Economic Freedom Rankings covering 161 countries of the world was topped for the sixth consecutive year by Hong Kong with a score of 1.30. The leader is followed by Singapore, New Zealand, Bahrain, Luxembourg, the United States, Ireland, Australia, Switzerland, and Britain.

All countries in this group, with scores below 2.0, were rated as "free."

The least free countries, according to the index, are Iraq and North Korea.