Latvia, Legislation, Port, Transport

She explained that in order to assess the impact of the Freeport of Riga decision to increase port fees, it is "first, necessary to find out for what purpose the port's new earnings will be used. Masane-Ose speculated that this additional income could be used in order to implement specific projects or to attract/increase freight traffic.

KPMG's recent survey on Latvian ports indicates that port authorities should be more involved in ensuring a decent port infrastructure, as well as become more active in facilitating freight traffic. One of the ways how to improve the efficiency of port authorities is to introduce additional performance indicators.

If port authorities used more extensive performance indicators in order to record their efficiency, it would be possible to professionally assess (and publicly explain) the effect of increased port fees.

No justified explanation on the fees is publicly available at the moment, the expert stresses.

One of the companies at the Freeport of Riga, Neste Latvija, currently refuses to comment on the Freeport of Riga board decision to increase cargo and canal fees before learning the full contents of it.

As reported, the Freeport of Riga board has confirmed new changes in port fees, which means that incoming ships will have to pay a cargo or canal fee of 6.85% higher than initially, the company informed the business portal Nozare.lv.