Estonia has returned to first place in an investment promotion ranking of 31 national agencies across Central and Eastern Europe, the Baltics, the Caucasus and Central Asia, after the index rebuilt its scoring around how agencies reinvent themselves.
Invest Estonia scored 89.71%, fewer than 1.5 percentage points ahead of Moldova on 88.24%, according to the ninth edition of the ranking published by Emerging Europe. Czechia, Latvia and Lithuania shared third place on 86.76%, leaving all three Baltic states in the top five. Latvia had led the previous two editions.
The ranking awards points across seven categories: Foresight, Identity, Choice, Reallocation, Adaptability, Execution Momentum and Reinvention Culture. Researchers analysed the digital channels each agency runs and scored them within those categories — the biggest change to the methodology since the index began in 2018.
Signals the investment promotion ranking rewards
The authors describe the shift as a response to the limits of traditional promotion, in which agencies compete on location, talent, cost and incentives that investors can find in many other markets. The question the ranking asks agencies to answer is: “What would investors miss most if my country disappeared from the map?”
For Estonia, the answer given is minimal bureaucracy and a digital state, a model the country has been presenting internationally for close to two decades. Incentives still count: Invest Estonia supported investment decisions worth 431 million euros in 2025, a record year that owed a good deal to a new scheme of large-scale investment grants. The threshold for those grants has since been lowered to 70 million euros.
Reading investor signals faster
The ranking credits Estonia with acting on what investors reported. In May, a committee of the Riigikogu backed a bill creating an express lane for strategic investments after business leaders complained that planning takes too long, which the authors read as joined-up work between companies, the agency and the government.
It also points to where agencies put their effort. The stronger performers narrow their pitch to two or three sectors instead of chasing every project, and spend more on foreign-owned companies already in the country than on trade fair stands and brochures. More than 30% of the decisions Invest Estonia supported last year were reinvestments by foreign-owned companies already operating in Estonia.
Moldova’s second place rests on a different proposition: a pitch built around Ukraine’s reconstruction, where Invest Moldova positions the country as a staging ground, alongside its movement towards EU membership. Romania’s agency ranked last on 30.88%, behind Albania on 38.24%, while Tajikistan improved to joint 28th on 44.12%.
None of the 31 agencies yet matches the standard the methodology sets out, the authors write, though several appear to have concluded that past results and long-accepted practice are no longer enough.
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