Baltic States – CIS, Business, EU – Baltic States, Financial Services, Forum, Latvia, Markets and Companies

The experts have summarised the main business environment formatting events during the previous year in Latvia, which are also likely to affect the further strategies.

"During the process of preparing "Latvia's annual business report 2015" and summarising companies' financial data, we came to a conclusion that the turnover and profitability of business in comparison with 2013, is to be regarded as a positive zero, that is to say, the results are generally evaluated as fairly good," said Juris Rozkalns, Firmas.lv executive.

According to the experts, there are several affecting factors, but the main one is the geopolitical instability. Reciprocal sanction wars between Russia and the European Union, the military crisis in Ukraine and Syria, atrocities committed by the Islamic State, flow of refugees, financial crisis in Greece, populism of European politics and the possible British withdrawal from the EU – the line of events that are having quite a direct impact on life in Latvia can be continued.

"Some companies have successfully overcome problems caused by Russia's embargo and the decrease in purchasing power of the population – they have adapted to the new economic conditions, as well as switched to other export markets," concludes Elmars Priksans, Head of the Pohjola Bank branch in Latvia.

Influential finance and business professionals will discuss the challenges and global tendencies currently affecting Latvia's business environment at a large scale conference "Business Strategy 2016", which will be held on 25 November. More than 200 of Latvia's business executives and High-level management staff are expected to come together.

As a positive aspect Mr. Priskans mentions the fact that banks have activated crediting, thus improving the credit availability for enterprises, especially for the big and stable ones. The interest rate is low which should enhance the demand for financing. Meanwhile a rapid crediting increase has not been observed yet due to the geopolitical instability.

Firmas.lv summary proves that nearly half of the total enterprise tax income comes from the business dominated by foreign capital. The numeric proportion of these companies is small, but their contribution to the budget – remarkable.

More and more resources in Latvia have to be allocated for security and international goals; consequently less is left for domestic consumption needs. We also feel the economic decline caused by emigration, due to which the tax revenues are insufficient to cover the needs of the state and inevitably lead to the government's efforts to increase budget revenue by changing tax policy.

"Because of all the mentioned processes both the international and internal business environment is very changeable and the entrepreneur must be highly updated, flexible and ready to respond quickly to any changes," said Una Klapkalne, the National News Agency LETA Executive.

The first conference "Business Strategy 2016" will be held on Wednesday, 25 November from 09:00 to 18:00 at the National Library of Latvia. The influence of global processes on the business environment will be discussed by PricewaterhouseCoopers representative Stephan Oldfield (Britain), Pohjola, OP Financial Group Senior Economist Timo Hirvonen (Finland), Oxford Group head of the Board and “Oxford Leadership” partner Kim Møller (Denmark) and technology evangelist Fabian Kienle (Germany).

"Latvia's annual business report 2015" data will be presented at the conference, along with the analyses and conclusions about the three previous years and the tendencies of this year. To carry out the analyses, data of 21,200 enterprises was used, whose turnover in the previous year exceeded 145,000 euros, which is 97% of the total turnover amount indicated in annual reports. A total of 120,000 annual reports have been submitted.

The impact of global macroeconomic imbalances on the Baltic region will also be analysed, as well as the critical aspects of Latvia's business development further discussed, namely, demography, education and migration. The discussion will be led by assessors of economical processes recognised in Latvia, such as Morten Hansen – representative of the Stockholm Economics University in Riga, Ģirts Rungainis – partner of Prudentia, Aigars Rostvoskis, President of LTRK, as well as Juris Binde, LMT executive and Lolita Bemhena, a Board member of Spilva.

Conference "Business Strategy 2016" is organised by the company BIG event in cooperation with Pohjola and the National Information Agency LETA. Supporters: LNK, Firmas.lv, journals "Kapitāls” and "Prike”.