“Ready or not, English is now the global language of business”, writes T. Neeley in the Harvard Business Review. There is no doubt that companies are becoming global. We can see employees from five, ten and even more countries based in one company that cooperate with at least the same number of people in different parts of the world. The same goes for start-up community – their operation and philosophy goes beyond borders. A good example is the well-known Latvian start-up Infogr.am that has an international team in offices in Riga, San Francisco and Budapest.

Latvia is a small and open economy. It competes with its neighbors in the region to attract investment. And the competition is growing. Therefore, it is important to constantly think about ways to improve competitiveness and conditions for doing business and to be smarter than the competitors. Companies, as well as investments, go where they have the most favorable preconditions for starting up and developing business.

In order to facilitate the development of Latvia’s national economy and further investment attraction, FICIL has raised the issue of the availability of certain public services in English. FICIL members acknowledge that the use of English in certain fields in parallel with Latvian would considerably facilitate and promote various business processes.

More on the issue of English language in the business environment in Dienas Bizness article (in Latvian) by the FICIL Executive Director Marta Jaksona (available here).