Growth industry
In my post on Estonia’s third quarter gross domestic product (GDP) report last month, I took the glass-half-full approach and ventured that the numbers suggested the Estonian economy had turned the corner. The revised figures, just released by Statistics Estonia, show that the corner was not as sharp as we thought.
The original numbers had the Estonian economy contracting by 15.3% in the quarter ended September 30th; the revision shows that actual GDP contraction was 15.6%. This still represents an improvement over the second quarter, during which economic output fell 16.1%, but one that is less pronounced than the preliminary numbers suggested.
The official GDP revision also included some eye-popping numbers on the performance of individual components of the Estonian economy. The only industry that grew meaningfully in the third quarter was fishing.
The biggest loser was construction, where economic activity fell by a whopping 32%. No wonder so many Estonian construction workers have gone to Helsinki looking for work.
