The Foreign Investors Council in Latvia (FICIL) is AmCham's close advocacy partner on many issues regarding the business and investment environment in Latvia. AmCham, as an Associate member of FICIL, is invited to delegate its members to participate in the FICIL working groups if they have interest or relevant experience in any particular area. More detailed description of each group is available here. 

FICIL held several work meetings in January 2022: 

Digitalization:

• On 21 January, work group met with Undersecretary of State for Digital Transformation, Mr. Gatis Ozols from Ministry of Environmental Protection and Regional Development (VARAM) to learn about VARAM's priorities for digital transformation, plans for Open Data portal and efforts to modernize public sector.
• At the beginning of January, work group held an internal meeting to review the current governments action plan, discussing what progress has been made over the last few years.

Green economy development:

• On 20 January, work group discussed issues the private sector face when calculating CO2 emissions and accessibility of green data with Mr. Raimonds Kašs, Acting Head of Climate Department at VARAM. Work group Leader Dace Cīrule reiterated the need for policymakers to use the most up to date data when making decisions related to future green transition!
• Work group met internally on 6 and 27 January to discuss Climate law (Klimata likums) project, green data questions and Cabinet of Minister amendments to Energy Law (Enerģētikas likums).

On 3 January, FICIL sent a letter outlining its recommendations about VARAM's publicised updated version of the Climate Law project.

Labor issues & requalification:

On 20 January, work group emphasised that many companies still a face situation where employees provide false health information in mandatory health examination (MHE) process to representatives from Ministries of Health and Ministry of Welfare.

In February, the following work groups are continuing discussions with the public sector:

• Digitalization work group will hold meeting with Bank of Latvia to discuss data policies, digitalisation, and cooperation within public sector institutions.
• Green Economy Development work group will continue its dialogue with VARAM on CO2  related questions and gathering information on VARAM's process of creating legislation.
• Labor Issues & Requalification work group will meet with Ministry of Health and Ministry of Welfare to discuss problems with sick-leave certificate issuance.
• Transport & Infrastructure Issues work group is scheduled to meet with Ministry of Transport to discuss its efforts in addressing existing issues within the sector and plans for transport sector's green transition.
• Work group's are planning to meet Legal Policy adviser to the President of Latvia Mr. Jānis Pleps to discuss public sector modernisation, effectiveness of state administration, and to exchange views on President's initiative to establish a position of State Ministers.

You can still sign up for FICIL work groups by filling in the form here or by e-mailing ficil@ficil.lv. Full list of FICIL’s work groups is available here.