If the Saeima unjustifiably limits opportunities to engage in business, we will turn to the Constitutional Court, LETA was told by Board Chairman of LLC Rimi Latvia Valdis Turlais.
He said the Latvian government’s understanding of retail trade is insufficient, because amendments to the Prohibition of Unfair Trading Practices Law and the motivation, the justification behind the objective these amendments are intended to achieve is controversial.
At the same time, he says one legislative draft combines three different topics – more streamlined relationship between suppliers and traders, more of Latvian-made goods in stores and cheaper goods. It will not help resolve all existing problems, however. “If we look at what might come of all this, we cannot expect anything good,” said Turlais.
He stressed in an interview that the state’s interference with the free market will have long-term damage.
As for the price reduction plan, Turlais said this is an attempt to use methods of the Soviet Union.
Turlais believes that there is no reason for the state to intervene, because the arguments that the state can intervene in an emergency situation are not applicable to the current situation.
At the same time, Turlais mentioned in his interview that although food price hike in Eastern Europe is higher than in the rest of Europe, Latvia is in 6th, not 1st, place in this regard. “The price growth in Lithuania and Estonia was even higher in 2015 to 2024,” he stressed.
Commenting how the Lithuanian government has updated the cost of food prices and decided to establish an institution for the continuous tracking of food price dynamics, Turlais pointed out that the creation of a council in the case of Lithuania and markup regulation in the case of Latvia are “two different worlds”.
It has already been reported that Rimi Latvia in 2023 worked with a turnover of EUR 1.076 billion, which is 4.7% more than a year earlier, while the company’s profit increased by 5.8% – to EUR 29.09 million.
The company was registered in January 1992 and has a share capital of EUR 5 million euros. The sole owner of the company is Rimi Baltic, a company registered in Sweden.