On Tuesday, 11 October, Latvia’s Cabinet of Ministers once again passed the support programme for energy-intensive manufacturing companies to help compensate the consequences of the Russian-Ukrainian war, extending the sign-up term until 17 November.
The government also added several corrections, as confirmed by the Ministry of Economics.
Enterprises will be able to sign up once the support programme has been coordinated with the European Commission. At the same time, the Ministry of Economics invites enterprises to start preparing their applications in advance so that it is possible to provide aid as quickly as possible once all formalities have been settled.
Support for energy-intensive enterprises will be available for the period between 1 February 2022 and 31 December 2022.
The sign-up period will remain open until 17 November 2022. Applicants will be able to request support for the entire period or specific months when costs were the highest. Support to energy-intensive companies will be paid by the State Construction Control Bureau of Latvia.
The objective of this support programme is reducing the effect of the Russian-Ukrainian war on Latvia’s economy and enterprises that are in need of additional financial support due to additional costs that surfaced as a result of sharp surge of energy prices.
Support for energy intensive companies will be available in the form of grants.
The grant to compensate the gas or electricity price rise for a single company will be equal to 30% of related gas or electricity costs as long as it does not exceed EUR 2 million per company.
Support is planned to be provided in the form of advance payments (for November and December 2022). Payments will be followed by a check of actual costs. If need be, the volume of provided support may be corrected.
Support will be available to companies that meet the following conditions:
the company engages in commercial activities in a sector listed in the appendix provided by the Cabinet of Ministers;
their energy resource costs account for at least 3% of their total operational costs for 2021;
total electricity consumption in 2021 was at least 500 MWh or the total gas consumption in 2021 was at least 500 MWh.
Companies under international or national sanctions, persons from Russia or Belarus who hold majority shares in companies will not be eligible for state support in Latvia. This means:
capital companies decisive influence over which is held by the Russian Federation or Republic of Belarus, their citizens or legal persons registered in those two countries;
partially limited companies members of which consist of Russian or Belarusian citizens or if they have decisive influence over members;
associations the members in which include Russian or Belarusian citizens.
To secure funding for this support, the government in Latvia decided to allocate EUR 50 million from the state budget. This amount is enough to provide support to approximately 400 companies.