Despite the manifestations of optimism made public at the beginning of the year by some officials, the Ministry of Finance predicted that 2010 will still see the sign minus on Estonian economy forecasting a decline of 0.1 per cent.

According to the outlook released by the Ministry, prices are expected to grow by 0.4% and the country should be likely to meet all the requirements fundamental for moving forward to the adoption of Euro currency.

The numbers in the forecast are particularly interesting if compared with the others published in the previous outlook on Estonian economy (August 2009), when the Ministry of Finance forecasted national economy to go down by 2% in 2010.

Still, the enthusiasm linked to this correction from -2 to -0.1fades away when the latest outlook is compared to the one issued by SwedBank no longer than two weeks ago.

The Swedish bank showed in fact some quite high (unrealistic?) expectations on Estonian economy forecasting a growth of 1.5 per cent already by the end of 2010.