FICIL newsletter: Welcome 2025!
Happy New Year! 🎉 As we step into 2025, let’s take a moment to celebrate the milestones of 2024 and look ahead to what’s shaping up to be an exciting and impactful year. Here is a recap of December 2024 and January 2025
2024 Highlights
🔹 High-Level Dialogues – Meetings with the President Edgars Rinkēvičs, Prime Minister Evika Siliņa and the Cabinet of Ministers focused on Latvia’s long-term economic development strategy, defence industry strategy and defence fund, and public sector modernization.
🔹 Sentiment Index 2023 – analysis of Latvia’s investment climate and of the administrative burden.
🔹 Strengthening Partnerships – FICIL deepened collaboration with the embassies in Latvia, ministries, national and regional partners (OECD, EBRD, LIAA, FICE, Investors’ Forum Lithuania, LDDK, LTRK and others).
🔹 Welcoming two new corporate members – Riga Universal Terminal and Tech Mahindra!
🔹 New Website Launch – Explore our updated ficil.lv with fresh insights and key updates!
Looking Ahead in 2025 – milestones and priorities!
🔹 FICIL Turns 25 – We invite our members and key partners to celebrate this milestone with us on 27th February! For more information, please contact the FICIL office.
🤝 Going an extra mile for our members – more work group meetings, more member engagement and networking, more public communication about our member challenges and views!
🌍 Strengthening national, regional and international collaboration (including with the European Commission and the European Parliament)
📊 Driving reforms in our focus areas: labour market and education/training, energy & green economy, public sector reform and digitalisation, shadow economy and tax policy, investment protection!
December & January Highlights
📌Meetings with the Ambassadors – Discussions with the Ambassadors of Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Norway, Poland, Sweden, UK, USA focused on the foreign investment attraction, economic priorities in Latvia, geopolitics, key challenges of current investors, labour market trends, and sustainability.
📌 Collaboration in Sustainability – FICIL and CSR Latvia joined forces in the area of sustainability and green economy and set up a regular collaboration platform with Saeima.
📌 Private vs. State Investment Debate – FICIL Board Member, Māris Vainovskis, discussed the potential acquisition of TET and LMT in the TV show “900 sekundes”. He underlined the critical role private investors can play in strategic acquisitions, and warned against the use of state budget.
📌 Stragetic meetings with LIAA – FICIL met with Ieva Jāgere and agreed to strengthen partnership between LIAA and FICIL to ensure better foreign investor support in Latvia, to stimulate innovation, as well as, to attract more investment to Latvia.
📌 Public Spending Efficiency – on 23 January, FICIL, LDDK, FNA, and LTRK signed a declaration to enhance government spending efficiency and improve the business environment. A joint action plan is in the making…
📌 Tackling Regulation Delays – FICIL identified bureaucratic obstacles that are hindering EU funding access for investment projects and urges immediate action to improve competitiveness.
📌 Tackling Regulation Delays – FICIL identified bureaucratic obstacles that are hindering EU funding access for investment projects and urges immediate action to improve competitiveness.
Work Group Update in December and January
Shadow Economy Combatting
The group leaders actively engaged in discussions on improving enforcement mechanisms and combating the shadow economy. In December, they attended the KNAB and Delna Anti-Corruption Conference (Dec 9), participated in discussions on the Shadow Economy Restriction Plan (Dec 10), and met with the Ministry of Finance (Dec 16) to address tax-related issues. In January, the group leaders met with the Ministry of Justice (Jan 7) to discuss sanction efficiency and control mechanisms, followed by meetings with the Ministry of Climate and Energy (Jan 16) and KNAB (Jan 23) to strengthen inter-institutional collaboration.
Labour Force & Requalification
The group concentrated on workforce skills and training alignment with market demands. In December, FICIL met with the Ministry of Education and Science (Dec 9) to discuss Individual Learning Accounts and with the Minister of Culture (Dec 11) to explore cooperation opportunities. In January, a joint meeting with the Ministries of Education, Economics, and Welfare (Jan 17) was held on labour force and requalification policies, followed by the first internal work group meeting this year (Jan 23).
Energy & Green Economy
The group contributed to discussions on sustainability and Latvia’s energy transition. In December, FICIL participated in Saeima discussions on sustainability (Dec 10), Latvia’s Energy Strategy 2050 (Dec 11), and commented on the draft Climate Law (Dec 18). In January, Dace Cīrule, the group leader, met with the State Environmental Service (Jan 17) to explore ways to improve cooperation and to address long-standing environmental challenges.
Public Sector Modernization
The group worked on enhancing public administration and governance efficiency. In December, they met with the State Chancellery (Dec 6) to discuss modernization priorities for 2024. In January, FICIL met with Riga Investment and Tourism Agency (Jan 9) and LIAA (Jan 10) to discuss the investment climate and to learn about strategies of both organisations. In addition, the work group held their first meeting of the year with members (Jan 24) to update them on previous and upcoming meetings, as well as, to set priorities of 2025.
We’re Hiring!
🚀 FICIL is looking for a Communication Specialist!
If you know someone with excellent writing and communication skills and a passion for policy impact, direct them to ficil@ficil.lv for more details.