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.

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.

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.

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.

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.