Investment and Development Agency of Latvia

Investment promotion agency

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The Investment and Development Agency of Latvia (LIAA) is an Investment promotion agency that seeks to promote investment to Latvia.

Director

Parent agencyMinistry of Economics (Latvia)Websitewww.liaa.gov.lv/eng/home/news

Established in 1993, it acts under the Ministry of Economics of the Republic of Latvia.

Strategic goals

LIAA seeks to promote the competitiveness and export capacity of Latvian companies on the international market, promote the growth of foreign investment, and the implementation of national tourism development and innovation policy.

LIAA Aims and objectives

Aims

Carrying out measures that increase the export capacity of Latvian companies and promoting foreign trade;
Attracting foreign investment to Latvia;
Promoting startup companies and their development, innovations, and technology transfer;
Promoting innovative businesses, including collaborations between the science sector and the corporate sector;
Implementing measures in accordance with state aid programs;
Administering activities co-financed by EU funding programs and other foreign financial instruments;
Carrying out functions specified in the Tourism Law.

Objectives

Advising entrepreneurs on foreign markets, ways to start business partnerships, and helping them with business networking.
Organizing services that boost exports on foreign markets: national booths at international exhibitions abroad and trade missions.
Attracting foreign investment, including support services for new potential investors and aftercare of existing investors, which is geared towards productivity growth, introduction of new technologies and innovations in the priority areas of the POLARIS process, a foreign direct investment strategy.
Providing innovation support and its promotion in Latvia.
Ensuring that the newly established businesses and their growth in the regions of Latvia is viable, as well as setting up businesses related to the creative industries and their development in Latvia.
Carrying out promotional activities (marketing activities) that position Latvia as a tourist destination on foreign target markets.
Implementing measures that improve the competitiveness of Latvian tourism industry and promote domestic tourism.
Ensuring that LIAA’s provision of services and its development is customer-oriented and is using all available resources and optimization opportunities.

Investments

One of LIAA’s subactivities is attracting investment from foreign investors for Latvian investment projects and their further development. Examples of investment projects include businesses operating in Latvia, prospective new businesses, as well as state and municipal projects.

Priority areas for attracting foreign investment include metalworking and mechanical engineering, transport and logistics, information technologies, life sciences, health care, wood industry, green technology, and food industry. LIAA also supports the attraction of foreign investment for manufacturing projects that fall outside the priority areas.

Polaris process

Polaris process makes foreign investment attraction to Latvia more efficient by determining investment target sectors, summarizing and updating the newest findings in scientific fields that are related to their respective sectors, suggesting projects to foreign investors, and managing collaborations between Latvian national authorities, municipalities, the private sector, and scientific institutions.

Promotion of foreign trade

LIAA organises activities contributing to export-oriented business development:

Trade missions

LIAA organizes business trips to foreign countries, which includes business forums, workshops, entrepreneur roundtable discussions, contact exchanges, visiting trade fairs, individual meetings with potential business partners, as well as informal events.

Export seminars

LIAA organizes export seminars that deal with the key elements of export and provide information on news and trends on foreign markets, as well as the European Single Market.

Tourism

In 2016, Tourism Development State Agency (TAVA) was added to LIAA, which now forms the Tourism departments. The aim of the department is to promote the development of Latvian tourism products and services, make Latvia internationally known, position Latvia as an attractive tourist destination, and promote the competitiveness of Latvian tourism.

Foreign economic representative offices

LIAA foreign economic representative offices are located in:

United States of America
Belgium
Australia
Denmark
South Korea
France
Italy
Canada
Israel
United Kingdom
Netherlands
Norway
Finland
Switzerland
Ukraine
Germany
Sweden
Uzbekistan

Business incubators

Starting October 2016, 11 business incubators and 9 support units are active in Latvia (Bauska, Daugavpils, Jelgava, Jēkabpils, Jūrmala, Kuldīga, Liepāja, Madona, Ogre, Rēzekne, Sigulda, Talsi, Valmiera, Ventspils, and a creative industries incubator in Riga), which provide support for startups and their development.

Innovation incentive program

The goal of the innovation incentive programme is to encourage people to start innovative businesses, using awards as an incentive mechanism. In the same way, it is planned to inform society on developments related to innovations and their potential, as a result encouraging society and entrepreneurs to focus on developing and using innovative solutions, as well as increasing the share of innovative businesses in the economy and motivating them to start businesses in the areas defined and prioritized in the Smart Specialization Strategy of Latvia.