Dear FICIL Members,
First of all, we would like to greet you all during the first days of the spring 2017!
February has been successful for the FICIL as we welcomed three new members to the organization during the last FICIL Member meeting on the 21 February – “Afi Investments”, “Maxima Latvija” and “Ragn-Sells”.
Also, most of our work groups have been busy reviewing progress on previous position papers and preparing inputs for the upcoming High Council 2017. Please see below for more detail and a summary of various activities.
Please mark your calendars!
FICIL Annual General Meeting: 22 March 15:00 Venue: SEB office, 11 Valnu street, Riga Old town. Please register for the meeting here:
The Agenda will include various updates and reports from the Board, as well as give a forward look to the planned activities. Annual General Meeting means also election of new Executive Board members. We already announced that we would need to elect five new members of the Board. If you are hesitant putting forward your candidacy, please feel free to contact FICIL office or any of the current Board members to learn about their experience (list of current FICIL Board members available here https://www.ficil.lv/executive-board/).
High Council meeting – 25 and 26 May 2017
The FICIL and Government High Council meeting will take place on 25 and 26 May. We would be very grateful if you would commit to securing the participation of the High Council delegate from your company (i.e. representative of senior executive from your company’s headquarters) and inform us accordingly. Since the HC meetings are intended to facilitate a top-level discussion forum between foreign investors and the Government, we do hope and look forward to your support on this. More information to follow.
Updates from the FICIL Board
FICIL Board met twice in February: key items of the meetings included preparations for the High Council (25 and 25 May 2017); new member applications; finalising the FICIL Strategy document and other preparations for the Annual General Meeting.
Updates from FICIL work groups
Tax administration work group
The FICIL Tax system and administration work group met on 3 February. During the meeting work group members finalized discussions regarding potential changes in CIT regime (EE concept) and introduction of a progressive PIT system. The work group also had a discussion about the topics to prioritize from FICIL’s proposals table 2006- 2016. The next meeting is planned for mid-March (to be announced separately).
Energy and waste management work group
The work group met on 6 and 27 February. The group has agreed key topics and issues that will be included in the Position Paper – members have chosen individual topics for contribution. First Draft of the position paper is expected to be ready by the 31 March. The next Energy and waste management work group meeting: 13 March 2017 at 15:00, venue: Ernst and Young office, 1a Muitas Street, Riga. You can register for the meeting here:
Education work group
FICIL Education work group meeting was held on 10 February. During the meeting the group summarized and reviewed the latest activities in the higher education. The group is planning to build the Position Paper from the angle of contribution of the quality of higher education towards improving the availability of skilled and high quality labour (top concern at the FICIL Sentiment Index). April 6 is the date for the next work group meeting (details to follow in due course).
FICIL also contributed to the “Forum of Future Studies 2017” that took place on 4 February 2017 and focused on tendencies and challenges in higher education in Latvia – quality, competencies, internationalization, science. More information: http://www.lsa.lv/?page_id=6767
Insolvency work group
The FICIL Insolvency issues work group met on 23 February. Group members discussed latest problems encountered relating to insolvency administrators and auctions of the debtors’ property (all members are invited to share their cases and views with the work group members). Since there is an increased interest in receiving feedback and opinion about the amendments to the Insolvency Law and steps taken to strengthen the oversight of insolvency administrators, the group will formulate a common position regarding the situation – is there an improvement and if the steps taken are sufficient; it will also determine the future priorities and involvement of FICIL and its likeminded partners.
Hope you find this update useful. Please do let us know if you have any questions.
Your FICIL team