Organisation

The Investment and Development Agency of Latvia (LIAA) is a state institution subordinated to the Ministry of Economics of the Republic of Latvia. Operating since 1993 as the Latvian Development Agency, it was reorganised into the Investment and Development Agency of Latvia in 2003.

LIAA offers assistance throughout the process of setting up operations in Latvia, acting as a first point of contact and as a 'one-stop-shop' in assisting investors and in developing tailored solutions to meet their specific needs. LIAA has its own regularly updated database of Latvian enterprises to facilitate partner searches for investment projects and for exporting or subcontracting businesses. The Agency also operates the wide database of different types of real estate suitable for different kind of investment projects.

In 2004 LIAA became one of the institutions implementing state support programmes, advancing grants to entrepreneurs to increase their competitiveness, During the period from 2007 and 2013 state support will be provided to the development of science, innovation and business by encouraging research, development and technology transfer, promoting practical research, encouraging the formation of new enterprises and by facilitating availability of financial resources.

LIAA is also involved in the implementation of national programmes on export and innovation promotion and participates in EU 7th Framework Programmes' projects.

LIAA has recently been announced as one of the top 10 performing national Investment Promotion Intermediaries (IPI’s) in the World according to the Global Investment Promotion Benchmarking published by the World Bank. Coming up 7th in the fierce competition of 213 national and sub-national IPI’s Latvia has outperformed most of the ones in high-income countries and some of the traditional good performers such as Australia, United States, Ireland, Finland, Spain and Czech Republic.