OREANDA-NEWS. April 24, 2014. Instead of investing in bonds, Estonian pension funds should buy farmland, turning farmers into renters and handing them means to invest, says Indrek Neivelt, former Hansapank CEO and current head of the supervisory board at Bank Saint Petersburg.

“I see that our excellent pension fund managers have invested their money into state bonds of nations like Italy. They have read from textbooks that state bonds, specially of EU members, are practically risk-free. And the return is good,” Neivelt told Aripaev.

Meanwhile, he said, Italians, Swedes, Finns and other foreigners have been buying Estonian farmlands, which offers little returns and land price increases are purely speculative. Yet farmland is actual property, not bonds belonging to states who might default on their debt, Neivelt said.