If until now the European Central Bank has raised interest rates to keep inflation under control, now this objective has essentially been achieved and we should start thinking about how to make the economy grow again, says Margus Rink, director of the Coop Bank.
“The economy won’t grow when interest rates are this high. Now we need to move on to the next page, where interest rates will apparently start to decline,” he says. From now on, according to Ringi, it would be necessary for entrepreneurs to start thinking and launching new business plans, which would lead to new jobs and the recovery of the economy.
According to Eesti Pank, the Estonian economy has been in decline for a year and a half. If according to forecasts in 2023 the Estonian economy collapsed by 3.5%, by 2024 a decline of 0.4% is expected. According to Ringi, banks can also make a strong contribution to bringing the Estonian economy back from recession to growth. Thanks to recent higher profits, banks have gained capital to pump back into the economy.
“Bank profits are actually fertilizer that needs to be sown now for the economy to start growing again,” he says. According to him, Estonian banks today have enough capital to finance new business projects that would help create new jobs and bring the economy back to growth.
“Today we are actively looking for new credit possibilities: we have money in store and would like entrepreneurs to have the courage to explode new business ideas,” says the director of the Coop Bank. He points out that while entrepreneurs have had a lot of ignorance for a long time, they are now starting to have some clarity, which could help them come up with new business plans.
Rink underlines that recently in many interviews he has heard that everything is getting worse and worse, but in his opinion this negative emotion scares economic growth even more. He admits that it was really a difficult time, but now we should start thinking more positively. “We shouldn’t keep our nose to the ground, because otherwise nothing would happen and there would be no economic growth,” he says.
Hear what the bank director believes 2024 will bring for the economy, how interest rates will move and what Coop Bank shareholders can expect from the show!
2024-01-05 12:57:13
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