For years Estonia has been working hard for the sake of better connection between the East and the West, investing in new ports, renovating railways etc. But first and foremost, Estonia symbolizes European-like business environment, stable and low taxes, and very low level of corruption. Estonia is a window to the market with the greatest purchasing power – the European Union with a population of approximately half a billion people.
The territory of Estonia is 45227 sq.km. The maximum distance from east to west is 350 km; from north to south is 240 km. The coast line is 3794 km long. Estonia has over 1520 islands. The largest islands are Saaremaa, Hiiumaa, Muhu and Vormsi. Out of more than 1400 lakes in Estonia the largest one is Peipsi Lake (Chudskoe Lake) on the border between Russia and Estonia, and also Võrtsjärv. The three longest rivers are Narva, Emajõgi and Pärnu. The average daily temperature is from +6 in January to +17 in July. 50% of the territory of Estonia is covered with forests.
Estonia has the border with Russia, Finland, Sweden and Latvia. The capital of Estonia is Tallinn, where 30% of population out of 1,34 million people live. The official language is Estonian (Finno - Ugrian group of languages).
Since 2004 Estonia is the member of the European Union and the member of NATO. Estonia joined the Schengen zone, in 2010 Estonia became the member of OECD, since January 2011 Estonia entered EURO zone. Estonia is an attractive country for business and investments. The bank system is stable. The credit rating (Fitch A, S&PA, Moody) is A1. The simple and transparent taxation system. The tax on reinvested profit is 0%. The absence of corruption and concealed expenses. There are no limitations to free flow of capital. Transport plays a considerable part in national economy of Estonia. Not less than 12% of GDP of the country is transport industry. Here over 2800 enterprises, both of the private sector and those with the participation of the state, are working. About 10% of manpower of Estonia are engaged in this sector. The transport system of Estonia include rail, road, maritime, river and air transport, city electric transport and pipeline transport. The unique geographical location between the Northern countries and the Eastern markets in combination with a good transport infrastructure give Estonia the opportunity to provide for the access to the consumer market of 300 million clients. Including Russia – 141,9 million inhabitants; to St. Petersburg 24 hours by rail, to Moscow from 24 hours (by rail) to 48 hours by road; Finland – 5,4 million inhabitants: 3 hours to Helsinki by sea; Latvia and Lithuania – 6 million inhabitants: 4 hours to Riga, up to 8 hours to Vilnius by car. Belarus – 10 million inhabitants: 24 hours by rail, up to 48 hours by car. Ukraine – 46 million inhabitants: 2 days by car, up to 5 days to the Black Sea by rail.
From international marketing of our infrastructures and terminals to the development of specific products and education-related issues – where working together will eventually be beneficial for all. In the summer of 2010 this belief brought twenty-some logistics and transit companies of very different sizes and areas of activities around the same table. And together, lead by the Estonian Logistics and Transit Association, the decision was taken to establish the Estonian Logistics Cluster. The cluster is primarily a cooperation project, where different companies join their forces to promote the business of the sector.
In the globalizing world, various networks and clusters are the most acknowledged form or cooperation, which not only enables the cooperation of companies from one country, but also expanding it all over the world. We have set cooperation on different levels as our priority for the coming years and are developing a new intermodal transport corridor from the USA to Russia, Central Asia and China through Estonia. Due to the arched shape of the transport corridor running across the Atlantic Ocean, it has been named the transatlantic Horseshoe. The aim of the Logistics Cluster is to show, in cooperation with its foreign partners, that the fastest, safest and most profitable journey between those markets runs precisely along this arched trajectory and through Estonia.
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