Today, the Riigikogu heard a speech by Chairman of the Board of the Estonian Development Fund Ott Pärna who gave an overview of the activities of Estonian Development Fund and spoke about the situation and perspectives of the Estonian economy. In Pärna’s words, the Development Fund is the driving force of ambitious enterprise and it is looking for new growth opportunities of the Estonian economy. The speaker noted that the Development Fund had carried out numerous different observations both for diagnosing the situation of the economy and for analysing the success capacity of different sectors. “On the background of international trends, we have looked at the processing industry, different niches of the services economy, the financial intermediation, health care services export and the ways to use IT more effectively than so far in view of future profit,” added Pärna. The speaker stated that our state is receiving three times less fresh money today than it used to receive in the boom years. Pärna: “90 billion has decreased to 30 billion, that is, this is the money which we earn freshly from the world or borrow or which comes to us as investments and which in its turn helps boost the domestic economy and shape the state budget. These eloquent numbers show that we have to find a new breath of life for our economy. We have to find a new essence for the economy.” Pärna stressed the importance of seeking foreign investments and expressed the opinion that that was a challenge for the Estonian diplomats. The leader of the Development Fund also pointed to the capacities of the education system. The development opportunities of the IT sphere were discussed at length.
Pärna: “The new economy needs ambition, money and triggering. This is what the Development Fund investments are for. With this objective, we launched the international business incubator Seedbooster and established a venture capital association with 25 market participants which has set off with great success by today. During the recent 14 months we have made five investments, four are yet to be completed, and five future projects are growing in Seedbooster.”
Comments were presented by Members of the Riigikogu Aivar Riisalu, Ester Tuiksoo, Jüri Tamm, Toomas Trapido and Urmas Klaas.
The Riigikogu appointed, by its Resolution (
558 OE), Chairman of the Finance Committee
Taavi Rõivas the representative of Estonia to the Control Committee of the Nordic Investment Bank from 1 October 2009 until 31 May 2010. At the same time, the previous Resolution to the same effect passed in 2008 was repealed. 44 members of the Riigikogu voted in favour of the Resolution, nobody voted against and nobody abstained.
On the motion of the Constitutional Committee as the leading committee, the first reading of
the Bill on Amendments to § 74 of the Public Service Act (
521 SE), initiated by Members of the Riigikogu
Mark Soosaar,
Valdur Lahtvee,
Mart Jüssi,
Marek Strandberg,
Toomas Trapido,
Eiki Nestor,
Peeter Kreitzberg,
Hannes Rumm and
Kalev Kotkas, was concluded.
The purpose of the Bill is to eliminate the restriction which does not allow a state official who is released from office to be employed as a state official in another state office or in the local government over which he or she exercised supervision as a state official earlier. Elimination of this restriction would allow county governors, among others, to govern local governments also in the cases when they exercised supervision over the respective local government earlier. The Bill was sent to the second reading.
The Riigikogu Press Service
