Modèle

TALLINN

Historical Development:

History
In the end of 10th century first castle was built by Estonians in Toompea. In 1154 Arabian geographer Al-Idrisi showed in his world map small settlement with fortification in Tallinn area called Kaleweny.

See also
www.tallinn.ee/
www.tourism.tallinn.ee/

A medieval gem
The passing centuries have made Tallinn's historic centre the city's best-known trademark. The old town has several unique buildings, like the Oleviste church, in its day the tallest building in the medieval world, the longest intact medieval city wall, and the oldest functioning apothecary in Europe. The old town has succeeded in preserving its historic atmosphere: walking around among medieval churches and guild halls really takes you back in time and makes you feel like a true citizen of medieval Tallinn.
The heritage of different eras
With its strategic location, Tallinn has always been an object of interest to neighbouring countries. Every period of history has left its mark, making Tallinn the unique cultural landmark that it is today – a charming blend of medieval and tsarist buildings, traditional Estonian architecture and the buildings of the Soviet era.
Tallinn is a place where Estonian, Germanic and Slavic traditions, behaviour and cultural traits blend into one. Thanks to its long history as a cultural melting pot, Tallinn has always been a meeting place for people from all over the world and will continue to be so.

Economical Structure:
The service sector dominates the economy of Tallinn both with regards to profits and the number of people employed. 7 out of 10 inhabitants of Tallinn of employment age work in the service sector. In the Estonian service sector the share of capital is 45%, for the financial sector the respective figure is 60%. Business services account for 70% of all service sector revenues. The providers of consultancy, accounting, advertising, and design services include representatives of international and local companies. Real estate development has been progressing on a par with the general fast pace.
The industrial landscape of Tallinn is a fair reflection of the transition period in the economy where some sectors are waining and others growing. Tallinn’s industrial output makes up 29% of the total national output. Tallinn houses such leading industrial companies as ABB Eesti and Elcoteq Tallinn, which provide outsourcing services for high-tech electronics components for such world class international companies as Ericsson, Nokia, ABB, Philips and others. Norma manufactures one of the best-known Estonian consumer goods – car safety belts – for general Motors and several Russial car manufacturers. Successful companies also include the Baltic Ship Repairers and the well-known Tallinn companies of Liviko, Tallinn Dairy Industry, etc.
Tourism is an important component of the economy of Tallinn. The unique Old Town is the main tourist site, and the cultural and entertainment events held in Tallinn also contribute to the tourists’ choice of destination. Well-equipped conference centres a wide choice of accommodation, top-level services, the modern airport and the port near the city centre have helped to turn Tallinn into and international meeting point. All this has created a promising basis for the development of conference tourism. In 2002, Tallinn was visited by 840 000 foreign tourists who stayed overnight. Lately, Tallinn has become popular with cruise passengers.
Export structure in 2002 – 41% machinery and equipment, 12% timber and timber products, 10% clothing and textile products, 8% metals and metal products, 6% transport means, 6% chemical products, 5% medical instruments, rest are living animals and animal products, footwear, headgear, prepared foodstuff, other products.
Import structure in 2002 – 36% machinery and equipment, 13% transport means, 9% metals and metal products, 8% fuel and fuel products, 8% chemical products 7% clothing and textile products, 5% foodstuffs, beverages, tobacco, rest are plastic and rubber articles, paper and other fibrous cellulose material products, optical and medical apparatus, vegetable products, other products.

See also
http://investor.tallinn.ee/
and Statistical office of Estonia homepage
http://www.stat.ee/

Transportation System:
Public transport consists of bus traffic (in 2002 number of lines was 57 and length 617), tram traffic (5 lines with 42 km) and trolley traffic (8 lines with 98 km).
Tallinn Airport had in 2002 weekly regular flights 159 and number of scheduled airlines 10, passengers 605 697, 3355 tons of goods. Direct flight connections are from Tallinn Airport to Helsinki, Riga, Stockholm, Vilnius, Warsaw, St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kiev, Minsk, Vienna, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Copenhagen, London city.
Port of Tallinn number of passengers in 2002 was 5.9 million, volume of transit cargo passing the port in 2002 was 37.9 million tons.
Passenger cars number in 2003 was 132 874. Number of passenger cars per 1000 inhabitants in Tallinn was 352.
Traffic accidents number in Tallinn in 2002 was 601, including 88 accidents caused by drunken drivers. By accidents 27 were killed persons, including 11 killed by drunken drivers and injured 716, including 131 by drunken drivers.

Economical Trend:
Tallinn is the centre of Estonian political and business life. With its population of nearly 400 000, the capital is the driving force of the country’s economy. The city is home to about half of all Estonian companies, which are responsible for ca 50-60% and nearly ¾ of total business profit. More than half of the companies operating in Estonia on foreign capital are located in Tallinn.
Estonia’s limited natural resources and small home-market determine the type of economic activity (knowledge-based, export-oriented services and manufacturing). These objective factors promote the utilisation the country’s geographical advantages and human capital. In Tallinn, where nearly 70% of the employed population are working in the service sector, the global rise of this sector means favourable future prospects.
The focus of the City Government plans and actions in the coming years is determined by the vision of the city defined in The City of Tallinn Development Plan for 2003 to 2005, according to which by 2005 Tallinn will be the fastest developing living environment in the Baltic Sea region.

In order to realise this ambitious vision, 9 key objectives must be achieved:

To guarantee the favourable business environment
To improve considerably the quality and efficiency of municipal services
To improve the quality of living environment of children and young people
To improve the quality of housing – the living environment in block-housing areas –new private residential areas
To improve the city look – street and real estate maintenance
To enlarge city ’s land holdings
To increase safety
To reorganise the educational system to the needs of the new economic system
To guarantee the maximum breadline to the elderly and handicapped people

The first four are those of top priority, the so-called break-through objectives, which to a great extent guide the City Government ’s decisions and actions in the coming years.

Unemployment: in 2002 unemployment rate 9.3 %

Job Opportunities: in 2002 in wholesale and retail trade was employed 46 244, processing industry 46 062, in transport, warehousing and communication 30 716, in real estate, rent and business services 28783, in construction 15 180 people.

Typical Product:
Different formats of e-commerce and e-government are gaining ground. To date, an e-government system has been developed for the Government of Estonia, enabling it to work and process information electronically. An e-meeting system has been worked out for the City Government of Tallinn. A system of processing draft regulatory acts is also developed. After its implementation there will no longer be need to use large amounts of paper and the movement of documents will speed up considerably.
In banking the percentage of Internet bank users (about 40%) shows that the major players are Hansabank and Union Bank of Estonia who in this respect are more advanced than their Swedish parent companies Swedbank and SEB. Several innovative technical solutions and applications have been developed locally, for instance a mobile parking system of payment for parking by mobile telephone and MPS (mobile positioning system). There are 59 public internet points in Tallinn. In wireless internet connections Tallinn is among first 10 cities in the world. The majority of domestic IT products are designed in Tallinn.

Estate Market:
In Estonia system based on legal acts (planning act and building act) has been developed for planning and building activities. According the system Tallinn has a building regulation and a comprehensive plan based on what land use planning, building and construction activities are carried out.
Main concern is urban sprawl which means that according to adopted detail plans during the last years number of one-family houses (planned in total 876 residential areas with 13 720 one-family houses and 1887 flat-houses) in greener and less populated territories of neighboring local governments has rapidly increased and many inhabitants of Tallinn are moving out to settle down there. Therefore main objective in estate market should be rise of building density in city centre as well as to create other conditions to stop the decrease of population. Transportation and road network development is not in accordance with estate market needs. Development activities have been much faster in suburb areas than in city centre and it causes also lack of choices for clients of estate market. This means that what means for a city suburbanization means for an inhabitant search for a house. However, purchase of new living place is possible only for people with higher income. There is lack of cheaper living places, also for tenants in city center. City centre is serving mainly as a business and service area, industry has moved out. Estate market sees areas around city centre as a development area for residential use. Choice between suburb one-family house and flat in city centre is based on need for a living room, if it is bigger than 100m2 the house in suburb will be chosen. Main question is at which building density (FAR= floor-area ratio) use of infrastructure is most effective and life quality is preserved? If in city centre of European capitals building density is 3 then in Tallinn centre around 2-2.5, in old wooden houses districts 0.4-0.8. It is also proven that shorter distances and higher building density ensure higher economic effect.


EVK4-CT2002-00081
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