Analytics, Internet, Latvia, Markets and Companies, Technology

The institute's head Dace Helmane said that the banking sector stands our among other sectors as it meets about 73% of the criteria, and financial reports are available on Internet websites of all banks.

Telecommunications sector is also quite transparent, meeting 62.5% of transparency criteria, followed by hospitals (60%) and insurance sector (56.3%).

Lowest transparency rates were recorded in various wholesale sectors, including oil products, dairy products and food products wholesalers.

Oil product wholesalers meet just 13.8% of transparency criteria, dairy product wholesalers meet 17.5%, wholesalers of beverages meet 21.3% of criteria, retailers meet 24.4%, and companies of timber processing sector meet 30.6% of transparency criteria.

"In some cases passive communication on the Internet can be understandable, but in relation to various retailers – they rarely publish their requirements to suppliers or inform on their business principles," said Helmane.

For example, none of the large drug wholesalers and retailers has published information about their owners.

Helmane said that companies with less than 50 employees meet 22.5% of transparency criteria, companies with more than 500 employees meet 53.8% of criteria, and companies with 50-500 employees meet 37.6% of transparency criteria.

The survey suggests that Latvia's most transparent companies are Aldaris, Cemex, Grindex, Latvenergo, Cesu alus, Latvijas Mobilais telefons, Swedbank, SEB banka, Neste Latvija and Bosch.

The majority or 85% of Latvia's 500 largest companies have their Internet websites, publishing at least contact information, while the rest of the contents not always provides sufficient information about the company.

Arnis Verzemnieks, board chairman of Mccann Consulting and expert of the sustainability index, said that even though financial data of any Latvian company are available on the Internet website of the business database for a small charge, just 15% of the largest companies publish them on their Internet websites, demonstrating transparency to their potential customers and cooperation partners.

The transparency criteria includes information about existence of the company's website and information published on this website – information about the company's management and owners, financial data, and corporate governance principles.