Information-based Estonia 2010: context and political recommendations
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Institute of Baltic Studies
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Director, Institute of Public Administration, Tallinn University of Technology
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Senior Researcher of the Institute of Public Administration, Tallinn University of Technology
In order to speed up, Estonia’s development needs a cluster-based competition strategy founded on long-term strategic plans for technologies and economic clusters that takes into account the development of new high-tech and significant traditional areas such as energy and cultivation.
It can only come about through cooperation between scholars, entrepreneurs and policy planners. Estonia’s public sector is facing the question: how to ensure that the private sector’s problems are systematically reflected in policy planning? A consistent monitoring system must be created for the economic sector; and developing it must be a primary component of the strategy “Information-based Estonia 2006-2010.” In practice, it means forming working groups from private and public sector representatives whose job is to regularly put together overviews on future developments, current problems and possible solutions in their field. Under the current system, these working groups would be subordinate to the prime minister’s council on science and development. Since Estonia’s economy is closely integrated with the Baltic Sea economic space, the system to be created should include the owners of foreign firms operating in Estonia.