AmCham raised EUR 1350 at its annual Christmas Charity reception for its principal charities. In total EUR 3250 has been donated to Bezvests.lv, RMHC Latvija, SOS Children Villages and Latvian Foster Families this year. Over 70 adults and 30 children joined our festive Christmas event offering various activities for children, including a visit from Santa, Christmas crafts, gingerbread workshop and marshmallow roasting.

Our November Business After Hours was hosted by IIZI Brokers at SEB Innovation Center offering an excellent networking opportunity combined with a presentation on digitalization of the insurance and finance industry.

Internal communication may be the missing link in building a successful country brand. Without building an internal awareness about our nation's strenghts among the general population, including the public and private sectors, is unrealistic to create a convincing country brand. That was one of the key takeaways from the World Latvian Economic and Innovation Forum held last week in Valmiera. The forum focused on the nation branding and strategic communication, education, business, talent attraction, and explored the business opportunities in some of the largest markets: the U.S., Canada, Asia and the Nordic countries. In addition, the Red Jackets Awards were presented to the best exporting brands of Latvia.

The recent Meet AmCham event offered both education and networking opportunity for members. In addition to the presentation on how to get the most value out of membership, new members had a chance to make marketing pitches to those in attendance. There was a structured networking session that encouraged members to exchange business cards and propose ways how to cooperate with each other.

AmCham held its next Healthcare working group meeting to discuss next steps regarding implementing its vision on Latvian healthcare and certain pilot projects. The focus is on the project exploring implementation of an oncology data registry that would collect and analyse real-world data. The group is also looking at organizing a conference on healthcare data next year.