The Republic of Estonia, a country in northeastern Europe, will be celebrating its 103rd Independence Day on Wednesday, Feb. 24.
As part of the celebration, an Estonian business delegation will come to the Philippines to meet with the officials of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), the Bureau of Customs (BOC), the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, and other Philippine government agencies under the direction of the Ministry of Finance to forge strong ties with the Philippines. This will be part of the country’s efforts toward digital transformation.
The diplomatic ties between the two countries were formally established on Dec. 19, 1991. The Republic of Estonia is currently represented in the Philippines by Honorary Consul General Fernando Martin O. Peña.
Dubbed the world’s most advanced digital society, Estonia prides itself with providing its citizens hassle-free digital services to support their everyday necessities, including basic government services, education, legislation, and healthcare.
Estonians also played a big part in developing the social media application Skype developed in 2003, with the pioneering work of Estonians AhtiHeinla, Priit Kasesalu and Jaan Tallinn.
The European country was the first nation to hold national elections using an internet voting system for its municipal elections in 2005 and parliamentary elections in 2007. In December, 2014, it became the first country in the world to offer e-residency to any foreigner interested in using the country’s advanced digital public services to do business from anywhere in the world.
Estonia has been a member country of the European Union since May 1, 2004.