The priorities when working with the Foreign Investors Council in Latvia (FICIL) next years will be human capital development, increase of productivity and promotion of investments, said Latvian Prime Minister Evika Siliņa after her meeting with the Latvian government and FICIL this Friday, the 27th of September.
She said the sides will work on making sure Latvia has new foreign investments. Nevertheless, existing investors will remain just as important to Latvia.
The PM stressed that multiple foreign investors already have questions in regards to numerous issues, including the lowering of bureaucracy when it comes to real estate.
Siliņa also said that initiatives launched in January to reorganise the state administration and reduce the bureaucratic burden are also expected by foreign investors.
At the same time, it is planned to continue work on the competitiveness of state capital companies and good corporate governance. Siliņa pointed out that it is planned to make state capital companies, including municipal capital companies, more transparent so that additional funding could be attracted to them and they would become more efficient and exportable.
Siliņa emphasized that in the field of energy, the work done by the Ministry of Climate and Energy (KEM) is appreciated on the part of foreign investors. The PM said that the creation of the KEM has been effective, as at the moment “there is one person responsible for climate policy and for setting and achieving green goals”.
At the same time, Siliņa said that work must continue, because energy adequacy will be one of the indicators that could attract even more foreign investors.
FICIL Chairman Zlata Elksniņa-Zaščirinska indicated at the press-conference that the participants of the conversation set an ambition to become the most effective country in the European Union (EU), and to achieve this goal the country will require a huge number of reforms, some of which have already been announced and initiated.
Also during the meeting, FICIL representatives pointed towards human capital issues. Elksniņa-Zaščirinska pointed out that if Latvia wants to attract large investments, special attention should be paid to the human capital strategy, including the transformation of the education system, working with existing people and how to retrain and make people fit for the needs of the next economic cycle.
Speaking about the field of energy and green transformation, Elksniņa-Zaščirinska said that “this is not only a great challenge, but also a great opportunity for our country”. She stressed that several foreign investors have already announced ambitious plans to invest in this area.
The high-level meetings between the Latvian government and FICIL have been held since 1999 with the aim of ensuring a structured exchange of information and opinions between investors and local policy makers in order to improve the business environment and facilitate the inflow of foreign investment into Latvia.