The Survey, presented in Tallinn by OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría and Estonian Prime Minister Taavi Rõivas, notes that economic growth is accelerating, unemployment is falling and real GDP per capita may exceed the pre-crisis peak next year.

“The solid comeback of the Estonia economy after the global financial crisis is founded on a growth-friendly business environment,” Mr Gurría said. “Estonia still has some distance to travel before it closes the gap with top-performing countries. Now is the time for a new generation of reforms to boost productivity, harness human capital and put Estonia on a fast-track to full convergence with the living standards of the OECD’s high-flyers.”

The OECD identifies two broad avenues for future reforms - raising productivity growth and making the most of human capital.

GDP per-hour worked in Estonia is less than half the average of the top half of the OECD, and this gap is closing only gradually. To accelerate productivity growth, Estonia should facilitate knowledge transfer across the economy, by strengthening collaboration between firms, applied research institutes and universities, both domestically and across borders.

Eliminating remaining infrastructure gaps – notably by rapidly improving connectivity to Estonia’s European Union neighbours – and accelerating the insolvency process will help raise productivity. Energy efficiency programmes, including processing oil shale into lighter oil products, taxing the various energy sources according to their CO₂ emission content and strengthening incentives to invest in the energy efficiency of buildings, can help reduce GHG emissions and energy consumption so that stronger growth doesn’t come at the cost of the environment, the Survey said.