Baltic Tiger is a term used to refer to any of the three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania during their periods of economic boom, which started after the year 2000 and continued until 2006 2007. The term is modeled on Four Asian Tigers and Celtic Tiger, which were used to describe the economic boom periods in parts of East Asia and Ireland, respectively. After 2000, the Baltic Tiger economies implemented important economic reforms and liberalisation, which, coupled with their fairly low-wage and skilled labour force, attracted large amounts of foreign investment and economic growth. Between 2000 and 2006, the Baltic Tiger states had the highest growth rates in Europe, and this is continued in 2007. In 2006, for example, Estonia grew by 11.2% in gross domestic product, while Latvia grew by 11.9% and Lithuania by 7.5%. All three countries by February 2006 saw their rates of unemployment falling below average EU values. Additionally, Estonia is among the ten most liberal economies in the world and in 2006 switched from being classified as an upper-middle income economy to a high-income economy by the World Bank.