Happy holidays everyone! We hope you’ve had the opportunity to enjoy this wonderful time with friends and family amidst all the end-of-the-year endeavours.

FICIL Sentiment Index 2018

December has been a very active month for FICIL as well. We are continuing our preparations for the FICIL Sentiment Index launch event that will take place on 9 January 10:00 at the Stockholm School of Economics in Riga. The event will take place as a moderated discussion among investors and representatives from Saeima elected political forces. The event will be moderated by Mr Jānis Domburs, a distinguished journalist.

Don’t miss the opportunity to ask questions to politicians directly. This promises to be a very interactive and thought-provoking morning, so be sure to register here.

December in Focus

Chairperson of the FICIL Board, Julia Sundberg, spoke to a few news outlets in December to discuss issues surrounding corruption and uncertainty in the country, pointing out how these negative aspects affect investment in Latvia. FICIL Executive director Marta Jaksona also gave several interviews emphasizing the importance of Latvia’s actions in dealing with economic and financial crimes, particularly in regards to the MONEYVAL report, as well as bringing attention to the ever-growing issue of workforce availability. These are also the topics that are going to be discussed in more detail on 9 January.

FICIL Members Meeting

To end the year on exciting news, we are very happy to welcome the newest member of FICIL – BTA (Baltic Insurance Company). After a successful presentation by Mr Wolfgang Stockmeyer, FICIL members unanimously voted in favour of BTA joining the membership as of 2019. FICIL Members had the pleasure to hear what Mr Mārtiņš Kazāks and Mr Andris Strazds from the Bank of Latvia had to say about global economic trends and what potential impact certain events could have on Latvia. A big thank you to ALTUM for hosting, it was a splendid evening.

Update on FICIL work groups

FICIL work groups have been continuing their efforts in gathering information and creating potential solutions and recommendations for underlying issues in the investment climate in Latvia.

Transport issues work group heard directly from Ms Catherine Trautmann, the European Coordinator for TEN-T North Sea-Baltic Corridor on the future of the Rail Baltica project and what new investment opportunities the realization of the project could bring.

Economic and financial crime issues work group had the opportunity to discuss cooperation and the latest regarding combating economic and financial crimes with representatives from the Economic Crime Bureau of the State Police (ENAP), Corruption Prevention and Combating Bureau (KNAB) and the State Revenue Service (VID).  Representatives from this work group also met with head of Financial Intelligence Unit Mrs Ilze Znotiņa, to further talk over the developments in dealing with the MONEYVAL report and Latvia’s response to combating economic and financial crimes.

Energy and waste management work group held a meeting with representatives from The Ministry of Environmental Protection and Regional Development (VARAM) to discuss the draft legislation regarding the deposit system.

To keep up to date with the work group meetings be sure to check the FICIL website, other work groups are planning meetings in January 2019.

If you have any questions on the above-mentioned information, please contact us at ficil@ficil.lv 

Have a bright and successful New Year!

FICIL team