The Foreign Investors' Council in Latvia (FICIL) held the 21th High Council (HC) meeting with the Government of Latvia on May 25-26, 2017.

The 21st High Council event kicked off as usually with the internal meeting: HC delegates received a preview of the two days, main events and main goals. Since this was already the third HC meeting for the FICIL Honorary Chairman Mr Stephen Oldfield, as the tradition goes, a new Honorary Chairperson was nominated and elected. FICIL is pleased to send a warm welcome to Mrs Charlotte Norrby, the new FICIL's Honorary Chairperson and look forward to welcome her soon in Riga. HC`s guest speakers for the internal meeting were the Minister for Economy and Deputy Prime Minister Arvils Ašeradens and the Director of Latvian Investment and Development Agency Andris Ozols. Their key area focus was: Why to invest in Latvia?

The second part of the day was devoted to the public panel discussion "Do!". The 3 panels represented three of the five topics that FICIL was focusing on this year: Education, Waste Management and Energy policy, Economic crimes. Accordingly, the discussion was split into three parts:

1) "The Universities we will see. The future Latvian universities leaders' panel",
2) "The future of Latvian Energy policy in Latvia - re-thinking progress and future opportunities",
3) "Fighting Economic Crime: from common irresponsibility towards individual accountability".

During the discussion FICIL in collaboration with other experts and policy makers set up a vision on what should be done in future to make Latvia attractive for investors. Panelists discussed measures that require attention in higher education, waste management and energy sector and in the field of fighting economic crime to secure stable investment levels in Latvia and prevent investment decrease in the future. Videos from the panel discussion can be found here.

The main High Council event - the High Council meeting with the Government of Latvia - took place on the 26th of May in the Cabinet of Ministers. During the meeting, the Chairperson of the FICIL Board Zlata Elksniņa-Zaščirinska presented FICIL's vision regarding the key things to be achieved: main concerns of foreign investors and SMART goals for the future were reviewed (presentation available here). The FICIL's position papers on Education, Tax, Transport, Waste management and Energy, Economic crimes, as well as the view on Macroeconomic policy were submitted to the Government with an official letter. At the end of the meeting a Communique was signed by the Prime Minister and the Honorary Chairperson of the FICIL setting out the key aims and goals to achieve in the coming year. You will find all the materials, including the position papers and communiqué here. Please do continue to use those documents, share them with your contacts and colleagues talking about our priorities and recommendations. We have also a photo gallery from the High Council events. Photos can be accessed here.

In order to help us evaluate the 21st High Council meeting and improve our future work, FICIL has prepared a feedback form. FICIL would grateful if you take a few minutes to fill in the survey and evaluate the event from organizational side. The survey can be found here