On April 29, AmCham Latvia and AmCham EU Healthcare Committees organized a joint call to exchange key healthcare priorities for 2021. Both groups shared their advocacy goals, vision and projects related to healthcare agenda.

On April 29, Tallinn hosted a high-level virtual event to further explore investment opportunities offered by Three Seas Initiative Investment Fund that will provide support to large-scale cross-border infrastructure developments and will introduce new sources of financing to expand businesses in the transport, energy and digital sectors in the Three Seas region – a market of 110 million EU citizens with the fastest economic growth in Europe. To view the presentations!

Three experts from our membership - Leadership and career development trainer Anita Gaile, HR Lead of Cognizant Latvia Sandra Siliniece and Head of Talent Acquisition and Development of airBaltic Marina Volkova offered insights in the topic of career development and employment life cycle in the new work environment in our latest webinar in Connect with AmCham series.

On April 26, members had an opportunity to learn more about a new EU Directive on representative actions for the protection of the collective interests of customers - Collective Redress. It will grant consumers' across the EU broader opportunities for the collective defense of their rights. AmCham EU offered a briefing on Collvective Redress highlighting some of the potential risks identified in the transposition phase.

On April 9, members met with Kaspars Rozkalns, Director of the Investment and Development Agency of Latvia who outlined main LIAA areas of activity for facilitating foreign investment as well as for increasing export and competitiveness of Latvian companies: green corridor to enable new investment, incentives for investors with funds for staff training, R&D and RRF facility for economic transformation, grants and loan programs to support export growth and grants for SMEs exporting companies.

At the latest Health Work group meeting members discussed the implementation of five pilot projects in 2021: Oncology data registry, Digital health strategy, Secondary use of health and social data, Health Data Summit and Value based healthcare approach. Members also discussed speakers and topics for upcoming work group meetings and agreed to invite the AmCham EU Healthcare committee to share best practices.

On April 7, AmCham Healthcare working group held an introductory meeting with Aris Kasparans, Director of the National Health Service of Latvia to inform him about the healthcare projects conducted and to hear about the future priorities of NHS.

AmCham Latvia took part in a live event "Global Human Capital Talks" held by AmCham Ukraine and Deloitte Ukraine on the topic of upskilling, main challenges for Latvian business in the area of human capital and main human capital trends in 2021. Joning as experts were Renate Strazdina, Country Manager Baltics of Microsoft and Zane Culkstena, CEO of ERDA who shared their views on top required skills currently and tomorrow, different skilling programs and the importance of partnership among public and private sector as well as with universities. Revisit the discussion HERE!

Ronelda (Nel) Capadona, Director of the International School of Latvia has been elected to the AmCham Board of Directors to replace Renate Strazdina, Country Manager of Microsoft Baltics. Nel assumes the position immediately and will serve the remaining term until March 2022.

Facebook, American company offering online social networking services, has recently joined the Chamber. Founded in 2004, Facebook's mission is to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together. People use Facebook's apps and technologies to connect with friends and family, find communities and grow businesses. A warm welcome to our new member!

An emergency situation has been declared in Latvia from October 11 this year to January 11 next year in order to stop the rapid increase in morbidity. Companies still have the opportunity to sign up for staff collective vaccination against COVID-19. In parallel with individual vaccination, employers can organize collective vaccination of the employees who want to get vaccinated. Learn more about the application procedure and steps to follow.

Latvian airline airBaltic and Riga Airport have signed a land reservation agreement for building a new Baltic Cargo Hub at Riga Airport. The new cargo hangar will be the largest dedicated air cargo handling facility in the Baltics.

RTU Riga Business School is one of the first institutions in Europe to collaborate with Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), which the prestigious QS World University Rankings in 2021 announced as the world’s best university. As of May 3, students from RBS and other universities will be able to study in courses from "MITx MicroMasters" programs in finance, supply chain management, statistics, and data science at RBS. 

The Investment and Development Agency of Latvia has recently developed “Relocation Guide to Latvia”, which features all the basics at a glance of moving to Latvia and everyday living. It will help investors, foreign professionals, and Latvian diaspora navigate through the process of moving to Latvia and integrate into the labour market and local culture and community. It includes 3 major sections: “Moving to Latvia”, “Employment and Entrepreneurship”, and “Everyday life".

The Corporate Governance Advisory Board has launched a Corporate Governance Code promoting the long-term growth of the company's value, effective governance and transparency. New series of discussions to promote corporate governance principles were introduced this spring by the Finance and Capital Market Commission, the Ministry of Justice and Nasdaq Riga. 

In her recent article Dr. Renate Strazdina explores on one of the most topical issues for the labor market today - the importance of digital upskilling and shares key takeaways from implementing the Baltic Digital Skills Development Program. Read more HERE

April, 2021

Welcome to our latest Newsletter. This month we met with Kaspars Rozkalns, Director of LIAA to hear more on LIAA plans for facilitating foreign investment. Our Healthcare work group had an opportunity to engage in a discussion with the new Director of National Health Service and participate in an exchange with the AmCham EU Healthcare committee to discuss key healthcare priorities.

Our member companies airBaltic, Cognizant and Anita Gaile Consulting brought their experise on career development and employment life cycle during our Connect with AmCham series. In addition, leaders of Microsoft Latvia and ERDA shared their views on upskilling and the main challenges in the area of human capital with AmCham Ukraine.

We have prepared an exciting list of events and activities in May. Please stay tuned and let us know if you would like to contribute to any of our working groups or sharing expertise at our events. We look forward to hearing from you!

Upcoming events

May 11, 2021

from 14:00 till 15:00

May 12, 2021

from 13:00 till 14:00

May 14, 2021

from 12:00 till 17:00

May 19, 2021

from 13:00 till 14:00

May 20, 2021

from 16:00 till 17:00

May 27, 2021

from 16:00 till 17:30

Jun 03, 2021

from 13:00 till 14:00

Jun 07, 2021 - Jun 11, 2021

from 07:00 till 10:00

Apr 01, 2022

from 08:00 till 19:30

Special Offers

May 11: Webinar on real estate topicalities by Sorainen