Construction, Estonia, EU – Baltic States, Good for Business, Transport

Estonian-based company, which builds and repairs ships in Lithuania, Estonia and Finland, plans to benefit from countries such as neighboring Russia which want to renew their fishing fleets, Board Chairman and main owner Berman said. Demand for specialized ships and metal construction in offshore energy will also keep rising, he said.

"The global fishing market really has a problem now due to aging fleets and I think we will get a boom of fishing vessels in the near term, both in Nordic countries, in western Europe and in the East," Berman said. "Russia practically lacks a modern fishing fleet and has declared that it will create it. This will be difficult to do only at its own yards."

The closely held BLRT, which also sells metals and industrial gas, is Estonia’s biggest industrial company, with revenue of 4.9 billion kroons last year and net profit of 276 million kroons, according to rankings by business paper Aripaev. While Berman won't rule out listing shares, "today is still not the right time," he said.

The company has subsidiaries from Norway to Ukraine and expects to increase revenue and profitability next year after an acquisition of the Baltija shipyard in Lithuania in July, Berman said. Annual revenue of 400 million euros is a "realistic" goal for coming years as BLRT aims to do less subcontracting and more turnkey projects, he said.

The country's industrial output has grown at the fastest pace in the 27-member European Union since July, with a record 37% growth in October after falling 26% last year. Rising demand for Estonia's goods and services by its key Nordic trading partners, Finland and Sweden, helped the 19 billion dollars economy to expand a preliminary 4.7% last quarter, the fastest pace in almost three years.

BLRT, the world's leading supplier of barges for fish farming, also expects to start building icebreakers, Berman said. Its joint venture with Norway's Fiskerstrand Verft AS will in coming weeks buy the Norwegian company Multi Maritime to gain know-how in designing and engineering ice-class vessels and icebreakers.

Revenue in offshore-related operations grew 20% to 25% last year, helping to partially offset an overall slump in shipbuilding that reduced total revenue 18%, Berman said.

"There will be an increase in offshore-related business despite what happened in the Gulf of Mexico," Berman said. "There is no escape from this. In the Caspian Sea, all works on oil and gas are proceeding at full steam, and all the biggest players are there."