As we have just concluded the 25th High Council meeting between FICIL and the Government of Latvia, let’s have a look back at the highlights of this two-day event.

 FICIL High Council 2021

This year’s FICIL High Council meeting with the Government of Latvia took place on the 16th and 17th of September. During the two-day event FICIL brought special attention to areas that require urgent attention in order to ensure the competitiveness of Latvia in the long-term. These areas are green economy transformation, digitalisation, human capital development, and predictability of the investment climate. Despite the wide range of policy areas covered in the discussions, some topics kept repeating on and on again. For example, the investors were pointing out the need for a centralised governance structure to deal with cross-sectoral issues involving multiple ministries and industries. Also, investors called for a long-term vision in policy making and strengthened data policy and capacity, in order to ensure data-based and research-based decision making.

 Position Papers

In preparation for the High Council meeting, FICIL’s work groups worked tirelessly to develop their Position Papers and highlight the challenges and opportunities in their specific field. The Position Papers are submitted to the policy makers and serve as the basis for discussions during the High Council. This year, FICIL prepared 11 position papers that are publicly available here. We would like to thank our work group leaders for their tremendous work on this year’s Position Papers! For a summary on key topics covered in the Position papers, please visit the article here.

FICIL work on good corporate governance issues in public sector companies 

The introduction of good corporate governance and compliance systems in companies and institutions has been one of the key recommendations by the FICIL’s Investment Protection and Court Efficiency Work Group in the past three years.  FICIL has been actively involved in various processes that has led to improved clarity of what is expected from the companies as well as actual tangible improvements of the corporate governance and compliance practices of many companies. Māris Vainovskis has been active in developing the new Corporate Governance Code in Latvia as well as in other ventures. More information can be found in this article.

FICIL work groups

The 25th High Council meeting certainly provided us with plenty of material to work with during the next season and follow-up meetings with ministries and other public sector representatives are already in works. As we are currently reflecting on the outcome of the High Council and outlining the plans for the next season, you can expect the work group process to restart towards the second half of October. Meanwhile, you are welcome to sign up for the work groups by filling in the form here or by e-mailing ficil@ficil.lv. Full list of FICIL’s work groups is available here.

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-Your FICIL Team