Work Groups

Drawing on their experience of running a business in Latvia, investors identify areas for improvement and issues crucial to a particular industry or the entire business community. Based on this, it was decided to establish work groups that would develop solutions to improve the overall investment climate in the country. FICIL members, including the participating chambers of commerce, delegate their representatives to contribute. While working on solutions, the groups follow the work of public bodies, invite and welcome discussions with decision makers. The work group topics arise during Sentiment Index research, FICIL High Council meetings, and/or have been pointed out by various institutions and international organisations as pressing matters for the business environment of Latvia. The main work groups listed below move forward with a set agenda while the sub-groups work as specialised pop-up groups for interested members in specific fields and align their work with their respective main work group. Experts are only involved when specific needs arise to consult on the next steps.

To register for work groups, please click here.

FICIL experts:

Construction – Ilze Kramiņa (Eversheds Sutherland Bitāns)

Intellectual Property Protection – Ingrīda Kariņa Bērziņa (Amcham)

1Public Sector Reform

Leader: Reinis Āzis

Work group aims to foster more effective and transparent public sector that can create quality plans, policies and implement these. Work group looks to promote cross sectoral cooperation and problem-solving and encourages to introduce KPIs for state institution employees to evaluate their work and introduce related accountability. Moreover, work group recommends to analyse the current functions and set up of public sector institutions in line with future and existing challenges and workforce needs.

2Data & Digital Transformation work group

Leader: Edvīns Elferts (KMPG)

Data & Digital Transformation work group is reviewing current IT policies and legislative acts that regulate digitalisation field.  Work group is focusing on centralised responsibility of the digital transformation of Latvia, governance of IT policy and data availability, analysis and re-usage. Moreover, w/g focuses on improvements of G2B interaction, further development of e-Identification solutions and clear digital agenda for Latvia for the next 5 years.

3Energy & Green Economy work group

Leader: Dace Cīrule (Britcham)

Sub group:

Green Transport & Infrastructure work group (Jānis Grants, DPD Latvia)

The work group deals with issues related to energy sector, green economy development, European Union climate goals, and circular economy. In the field of green economy development, work group looks at ways to improve legislation to foster reducing and enabling CO2 emission utilisation, improve energy efficiency by promoting data availability, energy efficiency of buildings and improving the infrastructure for green transportation.  In the field of energy sector policy work group recommends to adopt integrated national energy and climate change plan, promote energy independence and cost efficiency in the Renewable Energy Policy, and encourage de-carbonization also from non-ETS sectors.

4Shadow Economy Combatting work group

Leader: Evita Goša (Schwenk)

Sub-groups:

Tax Policy (Vita Sakne, PwC)

Tax Administration (Ilze Berga, KPMG)

Enforcement of Policy

Work group main focus is on combatting, shadow economy, corruption, money laundering offences. Moreover, work group together with the sub-groups looks and recommends to introduce unified governance over results for reducing shadow economy, promote inter-institutional cooperation to proactively correct legislation that foster shadow economy. Lastly, work group also focuses on improving the effectiveness and transparency of State Revenue Service and simplifying tax administration process.

5Investment Protection work group

Leader: Māris Vainovskis (Eversheds Sutherland Bitāns)

Sub groups:

Fair Competition & Public Procurement (Māris Butāns, PwC)

Court Efficiency & Digitalisation (Daiga Zivtiņa, AmCham)

Quality of Legislation (Māris Vainovskis, Eversheds Sutherland Bitāns)

The work group looks into the existing business legislation and the rule of law which are among most significant factors for investment decisions. The work group is dealing with proposals to improve the quality of business and investment framework to make Latvia more attractive place for investment. Apart from quality of business legislation, court system efficiency and improvements in the Commercial Law makes large part of the work group’s agenda. Work group also promotes fair competition for all businesses in Latvia and improving the current process of public procurement.

6Labour Force & Requalification work group

Leaders: Irina Rozenšteina (AmCham) and Claudio Rivera (NCCL)

Sub-groups:

Education (Claudio Rivera, NCCL)

Labour Force (Irina Rozenšteina, AmCham)

The work group has been working on policy and legal issues related to the quality of skilled labour and smart immigration policy, matching employee skills with labour market needs. FICIL believes that workforce should be made more accessible, improvement of the infrastructure is required in order to attract investments and labour force. Strong focus is also on improving requalification and upskilling policy in line with the modern job needs, sick leave certificate issuance control mechanisms and the procedure of mandatory health examination.