EU – Baltic States, Export, Latvia, Markets and Companies

Small business owners who made careful decisions in the boom years – borrowing a minimum and expanding slowly and cautiously – are staying afloat despite Latvia's dramatic economic downslide, AFP/LETA points out.

As an example, AFP mentions the eco-cosmetics company Madara, founded at the height of Latvia's double digit economic boom in 2006.

Lotte Tisenkopfa, director of Madara Cosmetics, told AFP in an interview that when she and her three friends founded the cosmetics company, they didn't borrow money from banks, relying instead on a one-time EU co-financing grant for women entrepreneurs. When Latvia's credit bubble did burst last year, her foresight paid off.

Despite all Latvia's economic troubles, Madara's sales surprisingly grew thanks, in part, to its exports.

The Madara company began in a small lab, developing formulas for a series of eco-friendly facial cleansers, toners, and moisturizers for women. Now it has a 1,000-square-metre production facility, employing 30 people, shipping almost 70 % of their production to more than 20 countries.

It plans to build a brand new factory in the near future and introduce a line of 15 new products next year.

With the crisis forcing consumers in Latvia to curb spending, Madara products continue to be sold in the Czech Republic, Japan and Bulgaria. The company now hopes to conquer the US and Hong Kong markets.

For five-year-old Riga-based glass design company an&angel the crisis has offered an opportunity to expand to markets outside the Baltic States as its focus shifted to exports.

The company's export turnover is expected to increase ten-fold this year over last year's level, an&angel project manager Agnese Gara-Nimane told AFP.

The company that produces glass and crystal wares started without any credit, expanding very cautiously, she said.

Thanks to the crisis, Munio Candela, a producer of scented candles, launched in 2007, found a reasonably-priced property as the real estate market practically collapsed, a co-owner Ieva Dekstere told AFP.

"At that time the crisis was picking up and we decided to start slowly without bank loans or other outside support, which made us feel comfortable and confident of what we were doing. If there were no crisis we probably would be further ahead but we are certainly not behind," she said.

Munio Candela also exports to Japan and the European market.