Your Excellencies,
Dear Friends,
Hemingway has once said that you can find an Estonian in every port.
Today, I am proud to confirm that there has never been so many Estonians at one time in Dubai. This is a testament to two things; that EXPO 2020 Dubai is truly the World’s Greatest Show and that Estonia’s investment in the UAE, opening an embassy, trade office and pavilion at EXPO has caught the interest of our people.
Your excellency, I thank you for your well-known Emirati hospitality during my first visit to the Gulf as the President of the Republic of Estonia. It has already been a great experience.
Dubai has made history, as it is the first country in the Middle East to host a World Exhibition. Organising an EXPO during a pandemic with 192 countries participating is an impressive accomplishment. Congratulations!
Estonia and United Arab Emirates are similar and close in many ways – both small, dynamic, innovative and ambitious to introduce new solutions.
Our nations share a digital vision and are hubs for start-ups. Estonia, for instance, has the highest number of unicorns per capita in Europe (Skype, Playtech, Wise, Bolt, Pipedrive, Zego, ID.me). I know that you also have a goal of becoming a home to twenty unicorns by 2031. We hope that the start-up sector would contribute about a third of our GDP by that time.
We have lots of common ground and great opportunities for economic cooperation. I am glad that alongside IT and the defence industry, new sectors such as food security, education, healthcare and clean energy are also emerging.
Our bilateral relations have been evolving rapidly since Estonia decided to open its first Embassy in the Arab Peninsula in Abu Dhabi and a trade office in Dubai in 2019. Estonia has a sincere interest in deepening our relations both bilaterally as well in multilateral formats, we would like the United Arab Emirates to be our gate to the all-region.
During this EXPO, we agreed to establish the Estonia–United Arab Emirates Business Council, which will take over the role of further developing our bilateral mutually beneficial economic relations after the Dubai EXPO has closed. I hope that this flagship initiative opens up new horizons for both of our countries.
I am looking forward to visiting the pavilion of the United Arab Emirates. I am very impressed that you have two pavilions dedicated to education, the UAE University Pavilion and the Dubai Cares Pavilion. Education is an especially important topic for me personally, as I am a scientist and I have worked in universities for the most of my career.
I believe that Estonia has also a lot to offer in the field of education and education technology. Our Education Technology solutions enabled us to meet the challenges of hybrid learning during COVID-19 era. We have a lot to share with the World in the field of digitalisation and technology in education.
We are honoured to be at the EXPO represented with our pavilion, which tells the story of our digital society. Estonia is well known for the use of e-services in the public sector and businesses. We coped well with the economic impact of the Covid-19 crisis thanks to the high level of IT solutions, which allowed for smooth shift to digital channels during the lockdowns so that many firms were able to continue their daily business.
We have a very business-friendly public sector and tax system. Taxation rules are simple and transparent making Estonia a fantastic place for investment and it is not solely our opinion, the OECD has voted Estonia´s tax system the best in a world for many times. Our immigration laws favour the development of technology sector.
We present three topics in our pavilion: digital, smart and sustainable. We have 42 companies out there and we are very pleased that many companies have already found representatives, cooperation opportunities and agreements thanks to EXPO.
However, economies grow when we have peace and stability throughout the world as disruption in global value-chains affect everyone regardless of their location.
In these challenging times it is especially important to protect the rule-based world order and respect the core principles of international law such as territorial integrity and sovereignty of states.
I wish the United Arab Emirates every success in its important work as an elected member of the United Nations Security Council. We know the size and weight of this task from personal experience, having been elected members of the United Nations Security Council in 2020 and 2021. In the light of the events of recent weeks, it is more important than ever to stand up for international law, core principles and values reflected in the UN Charter. Ukrainian state and people are in our thoughts, we provide support in all fields to help this proud and brave nation. We will continue all our efforts to stop this horrible war and we will work with all our Allies to help to rebuild Ukraine.
Before I conclude, I would like to thank all our local friends for your excellent taste, I heard that you really enjoy the Estonian flavours in our pavilion. The fresh salmon from our cold-smoked oven, and our craft burgers are already famous throughout EXPO. I was told that it has been such a success, that the catering firms at the Pavilion are planning to continue their business here after EXPO and open a Restaurant in Dubai next autumn. So this together with the many business contacts means that EXPO has been a great success for Estonia.
Thanks again for your hospitality and my best wishes for the prosperity of the United Arab Emirates and its people.
