On May 23-24 members from 3 AmChams in the Baltics gathered for a 2-day Annual Pan-Baltic AmChams’ meeting. The program included company visits to Cleveron and Mooncascade as well as the visit to the Genome Center and two informative sessions on the labor market and healthcare led by professors of the University of Tartu.

Top-level representatives from six Latvian political parties running for election in the EU elections shared their views and outlook towards the main challenges currently faced by the EU and their possible solutions in the European Parliament pre-election debate. The MEP candidates also emphasized the critical need for Latvian citizens to participate in upcoming elections to ensure effective representation of Latvia's interests at this institution.

During the annual conference of AmChams in Europe in Washington, DC and Seattle on May 12-17, 35 representatives of 30 AmChams had the opportunity to learn about both political and economic trends in the U.S. The purpose of the conference was to engage with prominent political representatives and company leaders to discuss the global economic situation and gain an insight into some of the most innovative international companies such as Accenture, Amazon, Boeing and Microsoft.

A panel discussion on return migration was organized by association "With global experience in Latvia". Renate Strazdina, AmCham Board Member and Country Manager of Microsoft Baltics represented AmCham on the panel highlighting key conclusions from a recent member survey on Latvia's labor market challenges.

585 EUR were collected in donations during the Bingo Night event to support the Pink Train Foundation breast cancer charity organization. This amount will cover 29 individual consultations of a psychologist or a psychotherapist. Over drinks, snacks, bingo games, live music and a raffle with fun prizes AmCham and BritCham members learned about the new movement #PUPKULTŪRA.

More than 130 individuals, representing over 80 different companies and government agencies including 20 companies from Latvia participated in the second Latvian-U.S. business conference Spotlight Latvia on May 2 in Denver, Colorado focusing on Healthy Living including topics of healthy nutrition, biotechnologies and sports equipment.

In a recently conducted membership survey company executives reveal how they perceive current employment issues and what they are doing to attract and retain talent. Two priority areas were highlighted: promoting Latvia as an international career destination and the development of skills to reduce labor market mismatch. The main findings together with hands-on recommendations will be communicated to various stakeholders during the launch event in the next weeks. To view the executive summary of labor survey

The healthcare work group meeting took place on May 20 at Ellex Law Office. Possible cooperation with the Digital Health Cluster of Latvia was discussed, in addition to the next steps for addressing issues such as transparency, efficiency and digitalization of the healthcare system.

On April 30th Zinta Jansons, AmCham Latvia Vice President and Partner & Head of Tax Practice at Ellex Klavins was elected to the FICIL Board. Zinta has been serving as a Board Member of AmCham since 2016 and replaces Ingrida Karina-Berzina on the Board of FICIL.

Please welcome a new Corporate Contributing member of our growing network – Latvijas Finieris. Latvijas Finieris is the world’s leading developer, producer and supplier of birch plywood products and related services. Other key activities include forestry and logging, production of synthetic resins, phenol films and wood-plastic composite overlays, as well as purchase and distribution of complementary panel products.

We are excited to welcome Printify, a transparent print-on-demand network created to help online merchants make more money in a simple and easy way, to the AmCham membership! Using Printify, e-commerce entrepreneurs can easily pick, choose and switch between lower cost, faster, or higher quality printing companies depending on their needs. Recently, the company raised 3 million USD investment to expand its marketplace for custom printing. Among strategic angel investors are Steve Chen, Kevin Lin, Katie Jacobs Stanton and Gokul Rajaram.

As we are beginning to work on the 2019 edition of the AmCham Yearbook, we kindly ask you to update your company logo and reserve your advertising space in this publication. Contact Evija Gleske at evija.gleske@amcham.lv for reservations and Ieva Melngaile at ieva.melngaile@amcham.lv to update your logo.

AmCham EU has published Transatlantic Economy study with annual survey of jobs, trade and investment between the United States and Europe. The study provides useful background on the importance of the transatlantic economy and the deep economic integration between Europe and the US.

The publication "Corporate Governance Guidance and Principles for Unlisted Companies in the Baltics", is adapted to the Baltic business context by the Baltic Institute of Corporate Governance. Unlisted companies are welcome to use this framework to ensure their long-term sustainability.

May 2019

Welcome to our May newsletter. From taking part in a panel discussion on return migration to joint chamber discussion on the European Parliament election and from bringing our delegation to Tartu Estonia to supporting Pink Train Foundation, May has been a super productive month for AmCham. In addition, Spotlight Latvia conference took place in Denver, Colorado gathering some 100 participants. We are proud to announce the results of our member survey on labor issues - stay tuned for the launch of AmCham recommendations on talent attraction coming up in the next month!

Upcoming events

Jun 10, 2019

from 14:00 till 16:30

Jun 13, 2019

from 18:30 till 21:00

Jun 19, 2019

from 11:30 till 14:00

Jul 06, 2019

from 13:00 till 16:00

Sep 19, 2019

from 17:00

Sep 26, 2019

from 17:30 till 22:00

Special Offers

LL.B programs Open House at RGSL

Voucher for 100 EUR from Latvia Tours

Interactive Data Visualization with MS Power BI, June 10-11