AmCham as an Associate member of the Foreign Investors' Council in Latvia, including a number of our members, is actively involved in its working groups aiming at proposing constructive recommendations to the government on a wide variety of issues. 

At the start of the new autumn season, FICIL would like to update members on the status of its work groups. Below you will find a list of FICIL`s recent work groups and a short description of issues the group has been lately focusing on.

We would like to encourage to sign up to the work groups of your interest - this is your possibility to follow and influence the work of the respective group. Those who are already members of a group, need not to re-apply. Also, depending on your interest and activity, FICIL will be able to see which sectors and areas they need to address at the next year's High Council meeting.

This year FICIL is planning to start two new work groups covering Energy and Waste management. In case there are topics that are not covered in the list below, please do let us know and FICIL will explore them.

Public Procurement
Leader: Una Petrauska (KPMG)
Last meeting: July, 2016
• Procurement below threshold
• Procurement organized by the municipalities
• Reasonable time period for public contracts
• Cross boarder procurements
• In-house procurements.

Insolvency law
Leader: Ilze Znotiņa (Amcham/ Deloitte Latvia)
Last meeting: June, 2016
Amendments to the Insolvency law.

Tax work group
Leader: vacant
Last meeting: June, 2016
• World Bank's evaluation of Latvia's Tax system.
• How to improve national legislation regarding transfer pricing; proper introduction of an advanced pricing agreement (APA) institute.
• Plan on reducing and restricting shadow economy in Latvia.
• Efficiency of the court system of Latvia in applying tax law.
• Potential pilot project - mediation in tax disputes.

Education Work Group
Leader: Claudio Rivera (Amcham/ Riga Buisness School)
Last meeting: April, 2016
August 2016 Meeting with State Education Development Agency (topics discussed: vocational education, quality of higher education and involvement of industry).
September 2016 Meeting with the Minister for Education and Science (topics for discussion: Position Paper on Education 2016).
Next w/g meeting 4 October 2016 at 12:00 (venue and agenda TBC).

Construction Work group
Leader: Ilze Kramiņa (Eversheds Bitāns)
Last meeting: March, 2016
• Real estate transaction process and amendments proposed by the Notary Council
• Certification of the construction specialists - protection of the local market versus innovation, experience, development. (Initiative from Witteween Bos and the Embassy of the Netherlands)
• Participation in the process of preparation of the standard construction agreements to be developed by the Ministry of Economy/Construction State Control Bureau
• Liability of the involved parties

Health care system
Leader: Valts Ābols (GlaxoSmithKline)
Last meeting: March, 2016
Discussion about the possible mandatory health insurance models.
Upcoming in September 2016: introductory meeting with the Minister for Health.
More information regarding the w/g and possible topics end of September.

Investment protection
Leader: Māris Vainovskis (Eversheds Bitāns)
Last meeting: February, 2016
• Commercial Law - further proposals for improvement
o Share options
o Partnerships regulation development
o Transfer of undertaking regulation development and clarification
• Law on Commecial Pledges - improvements related to clarity and creditor rights protection
• Shareholders agreement status recognition (reiteration of the position, more detailed arguments)
• Proposed real estate transactions reform (notarial form requirement).

Transport
Leaders: Arnis Kākulis (Amcham/AECOM); Jūlija Māsāne-Ose (KPMG)
Last meeting: February, 2016
• Curbing the Shadow Economy
• Rail Baltica and related issues
Work group meeting to be announced soon.

Human Resources: Labour Law
Leader: Kaspars Kauliņš (SCC/ Pedersen & Partners)
Discussion of the amendments proposed by FICIL to the Labour Law (Position Paper 2015: Availability and Quality of the Labour force).

Sustainable economic development
Leader: Guntars Krols (Ernst & Young)
FICIL Sentiment index 2016.

Intellectual Property protection
Leader: Ingrīda Kariņa - Bērziņa (Amcham/ COBALT)
August, 2016 Comments to the Patent office about the Intellectual Property Strategy development.

Energy work group
Please submit proposal for topics to be discussed.

Waste Management
Please submit proposal for topics to be discussed.

If you are interested in participating in the work of any of the work groups or would like to have more information, please let us know by emailing amcham@amcham.lv.

To sign up for working groups and read more, please click here.