In 2008 we provided in total 16, 593 services, 91% - 15, 157 of them to the members of the Chamber of Commerce. The majority of services were aimed at introducing export opportunities and promotion of foreign trade in broader sense.
From 1 January 2008 the Estonian Chamber of Commerce and Industry is the Estonian coordinator of the cross-European network Enterprise Europe Network which joins 40 countries and 600 organisations aimed at supporting entrepreneurship. It is biggest information network of its kind which is co-financed by the European Commission (EC) and which support uniform European small and medium-size entrepreneurship. The aim of the network is to improve their innovative capacity as well as competitiveness and exportability by offering the entrepreneurs practical support in international co-operation – providing advice and forwarding necessary information.
Seminars and trainings
The traditional target market seminars discussed the business environment and opportunities in Russia, Ukraine, Lithuania, Finland, Moldova, Azerbaijan, United Kingdom, the Balkans and China.
Among the longer training series we initiated in cooperation with Enterprise Estonia (EE) the forum of lectures, trainings and discussions Export Academy (EA) and organised exhibition trainings which were carried out in Estonian as well as Russian. Furthermore, there were trainings in the field of public procurements and industrial property.
Due to the global economic crisis and deterioration of the business environment we organised thematic seminars. For example, there was a seminar in November where the former head of the Bank of Finland Taisto Kangas gave an overview of the banking crisis of Finland in the 1990s, its reasons and influences.
Export Academy
The seminars of the Export Academy deserve separate mentioning due to the fact that it is a series of events which forms the attitudes of entrepreneurs and is also a starting ground for export. The EA joins around 30 experienced exporters who are interested in gaining new knowledge and learning about new trends, developing them further and forwarding this knowledge to the starting companies. The aim of the EA is to achieve among the entrepreneurs an attitude that export is natural. The topic of the seminars that took place in 2008 was globalisation and world economy and post-modern markets. The EA seminars will continue in 2009 with the following topics: sustainable development, brand management, innovation, foreign trade, export and human resources, international financial markets etc. In 2008 the following persons spoke at the seminars of the Export Academy: Jan Palmstierna, Ambassador of Sweden in Estonia; Dr Taisto Kangas from the Helsinki School of Economics, Siim Sikkut from the Development Fund, Maria Alajõe from EE, guru of postmodern markets Magnus Westerberg from Sweden, Urmas Varblane from the University of Tartu, Marje Josing from the Estonian Institute of Economic Research, Tõnu Palm from Nordea Markets, Sten Tamkivi from Skype Estonia. The organisation of the EA is financed by the European Social Fund within the framework of the EE Knowledge and skills development programme.
Business delegations to foreign markets
During the last year we took delegations of Estonian entrepreneurs to Central and Eastern Europe and Asia and introduced them the business possibilities there. The business visits to East – to Ukraine, Byelorussia, Bulgaria and China were especially popular, as were trips to Germany and Lithuania. There were in total 8 high-level business delegations accompanying the President or Prime Minister of Estonia in 2008. The President was accompanied on his state visit to the United States, Ireland, United Kingdom and Wales, and the Prime Minister was accompanied to Georgia, Turkey, Croatia and Germany, in addition to that the minister of economic affairs and communications was accompanied to Germany and Finland.
Business meetings and exhibitions
In 2008 the Chamber of Commerce organised, with the support of the European Commission (EK), contact meetings within the framework of various fairs. Estonian delegations participated at the IT’n’T exhibition in Austria, at the Grüne Woche and ITB exhibitions in Germany, renewable energy exhibition Pave in Austria and bio-energy exhibition in Denmark, eco-tourism exhibition in China and mechanics exhibition in Slovakia. Within the framework of the INTI project a contact day was organised between employers and job seekers. A visit to the environmental technology exhibition and contact meetings between local and visiting companies took place within the framework of the Eccop.Net project financed by the EC the aim of which was to promote cooperation between the entrepreneurs of the old and new Member States in the area of environmental technology and the special emphasis of the project was on renewable energy and other environmentally friendly technologies (including energy efficient construction).
In 2008 10 contact days were organised – Ukraine, Byelorussia and Latvia contact days and contact day of the Spanish metal enterprises as well as contact day of the Romanian wine producers. Furthermore, business delegations of the French chambers, Turkish president, Belgian King and Czech Prime Minister were received.
As a tradition, we also organised a joint stand at the sub-contracting mess Elmia in Sweden.
Information services
In 2008 more than 1000 requests from entrepreneurs were replied to regarding implementation of the EU legislation in Estonia, customs inquiries, tax and foreign trade inquiries. Among those were 288 inquiries from foreign entrepreneurs, 111 partner inquiries (Chambers, embassies etc) and 148 inquiries from Estonian companies through the EEN network database. The issues of highest interest continued to be the EU supports and programmes, public procurements, foreign trade issues and implementation of the EU legislation in Estonia.
Partner search
In the area of partner search the Chamber of Commerce mediated foreign contacts for 144 Estonian companies within the framework of the EEN network. Profiles of 19 Estonian companies were entered into the cooperation offers database. In spring 2008, for the third consecutive year the Estonian companies had the opportunity to participate in the exclusive training programme Executive Training Programme (ETP) in Japan and Korea. The aim of the 12-month training programme, which was fully financed by the EC was to give the entrepreneurs of the EU member states the possibility to acquire the necessary skills for being successful in two of the world’s fastest developing markets. From Estonia one company was selected for each direction: Estosteel OÜ (Korea) and Eumar Santehnika OÜ (Japan).
Procurement monitoring
The service of public procurement monitoring which started in 2005 is becoming more and more popular, allowing Estonian companies to save time and obtain information regarding the tender offers that are of interest to them directly to their e-mail address. In 2008 there were in total 16 long-term clients of the procurement monitoring service. During the year we published in the Teataja and on the web page short descriptions of 471 public procurement notices, on the basis of which we issued the full text of 238 tender notices to the persons interested. Through the Ministry of Defence, we published 70 public procurement notices from the NATO agencies. Their full texts can be seen in the internal web of the Chamber of Commerce. The entrepreneurs are continuously provided with the possibility of acquiring the EUR-OP and ICC materials the sales representative of which is the Chamber of Commerce.
Foreign trade documents
During the last year the Chamber issued 37 ATA carnets, which is almost twice as much as during the previous year (21). The list includes such countries as Russia (14), Byelorussia (8), Norway (6), China (3), and Turkey (2), the USA, Australia, Switzerland, and Ukraine (1).
In 2008 we settled 25 claims filed by the customs against ATA carnets which the Estonian Tax and Customs Board has issued in foreign countries. Six submitted and pending claims were transferred to the year 2009. No claims were filed from foreign countries to the ATAs issued in Estonia.
The number of issued foreign trade documents increased by more than 10% as compared to the year 2007, reaching 18, 378 documents. Together with the offices the number of issued documents issued exceeded the number of the previous year by 1862.
