On Saturday, June 30, around 1000 guests participated in the AmCham's annual U.S. Independence Day Picnic celebration. Blessed with a sunny weather, the venue was buzzing with guests throughout the day. Festivities included a wide variety of food and beverages, charity raffle, games and contests, American car exhibit, activities for children. In addition to various activities, 1000 EUR were raised in the charity raffle in benefit of the Latvian Foster Family Association, RMHC Latvija Care Mobile and SOS Children's Villages Latvia.

AmCham was more than thrilled to have the Governor of Michigan, Rick Snyder as the keynote speaker of the June luncheon who spoke on the economic development in Michigan drawing on numerous practical examples how to reduce unemployment and create jobs.

On July 3, 2018, AmCham Latvia, the Latvian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Latvian American Chamber of Commerce signed a cooperation memorandum between the organizations to commemorate the launch of their partnership. By expanding the existing network, partners hope to broaden the benefits of “Gateway to the USA” program and to provide more opportunities to individual businesses both in Latvia and in the U.S.

On June 20 AmCham together with the U.S. Embassy in Riga hosted a discussion ​on how Latvia can improve its efforts to attract highly qualified students in STEM areas. To increase the number of ICT graduates, panelists came to the conclusion that Latvia must make use of its competitive IT infrastructure to attract international students, and to apply more practical, interdisciplinary approaches to learning to bridge the gap between education and application in the workforce.

The busy 2-day program included two conference sessions on Rail Baltica & blockchain technology as well as cryptocurrency, a business breakfast with Ilja Laurs, and an evening reception hosted by the U.S. Ambassador in Lithuania. Company visits were held at NASDAQ Vilnius, EKSPLA, Thermo Fisher Scientific and Arginta.

Ame Pure, Cognizant and Slokenbergs PLLC have recently joined the Chamber. Welcome to the AmCham community!

We would like to give a short update on three advocacy initiatives we are currently focusing on: Internal Market Committee within the Ministry of Economics, cooperation with the State Revenue Service and workforce mobility of our Labor Force working group. Your feedback and suggestions are welcome!

The 5th World Latvian Economic and Innovation Forum was held in Valmiera, from June 28-29, 2018. This year's WLEIF included various presentations and discussions, including participation of AmCham Latvia President in a discussion on why one should select Latvia as a destination for business, and AmCham Board member Ingrīda Kariņa-Bērziņa who served as a moderator of entire event. The program included practical examples for attracting capital investment and appropriate human resources, an introduction to specific foreign markets, a "Speed Contact Exchange", a trade display to highlight some of the most successful Latvian businesses.

FICIL and the Latvian government met for the 22nd time at the High Council meeting to discuss improvement of investment environment. The two panels of the public panel discussion "Building Trust!" represented the meeting's main priorities: digitalization and the fight against economic crime.

On July 4 Julia Sundberg from Fortum was elected as the Chairperson of the FICIL's Executive Board. She will replace previous chairperson Zlata Elksniņa-Zaščirinska who will continue to serve as a FICIL Board member.

Fifty-one trade groups are joining the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and 222 state and local chambers by signing a letter that was sent to U.S. senators on June 26 in support for a bill introduced this month by Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn. The legislation would require Congress to approve or reject any new tariffs on steel and aluminum imports.

This July a wave of steep retaliatory tariffs is poised to hit billions of U.S. exports resulting in more expensive products for consumers on both sides of the Atlantic. These tariffs are being levied by other countries, including the EU, on U.S. products in response to U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum imposed on the EU and other countries. In an opinion article SSE Riga graduate and Consultant Rasa Gulbe writes how this “tit-for-tat” strategy might affect global trade.

The goal of the Accelerator is to empower Baltic companies to enter the U.S. market. They are aiming at companies from sectors including IT and ICT, food and beverage, life science, furniture and design. Applications are due August 15, 2018.

Public organizations (all NGO sector) are invited to apply for Baltic-American Dialogue program to receive financial support up to 10 000 USD to host speakers from the U.S. to travel to Baltics. Applicant organizations are encouraged to design projects and invite experts to address the interests of their unique constituencies. Application deadline is February 1. Apply here!

Lasse Henritius has become a Managing Director at Leinonen Latvia as of June 1. Congratulations to Mr.Henritius on his new post and a warm welcome!

CBRE Baltics has released Riga Office and Vilnius Office MarketView for Q1 2018: Rent levels stable despite low vacancy, a class developers showing more confidence.

June/July 2018

Welcome to our summer newsletter. This past month has been super busy and fulfilled. We hosted a festive family picnic to celebrate the U.S. Independence Day. We had a chance to meet the Governor of Michigan, Rick Snyder. We took part in the Pan-Baltic conference of AmChams in Vilnius. We organized a discussion ​on STEM education together with the U.S. Embassy and signed a cooperation memorandum with the Latvian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Latvian American Chamber of Commerce. We wish you a wonderful summer!

Upcoming events

Aug 29, 2018

from 18:30 till 21:00

Aug 30, 2018

from 12:30 till 14:00

Sep 20, 2018

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