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LIAA Celebrates its 15th birthday!
LIAA Celebrates its 15th birthday!
While Latvia celebrated its 90th anniversary in November, employees at the Investment and Development Agency of Latvia (LIAA) have already been celebrating their agency’s 15th year in action. Throughout these 15 years LIAA has successfully become a professional and user-friendly State institution.
On September 7, 1993, a team of less than 10 people gathered to form the Latvian Development Agency (LDA) under the supervision of the Ministry of Economics. These truly one-stop-specialists were in charge of Latvia’s export promotion and FDI attraction back in the days when internet and e-mail were still more of a fiction than reality. The initial concept of the agency was built around that of the Invest in Ireland Agency, and a visit by the team to the Welsh Development Agency soon followed. During this visit the LDA pioneers learned for the first time about the operations and activities of an investment and export promotion agency, an experience that was quickly absorbed and readily implemented.
The very first investment project that the Agency worked with was a manufacturing unit for dry soluble non-alcoholic drink powders produced by a Chilean company Corpora Tres Montes. Their products – Zuko and Yupi – are still recognised by majority of Latvians. The production unit was officially opened at the end of 1997 with an investment of 15 million USD.
While the Agency was growing, both in numbers and success stories at its home base, so grew LIAA’s international presence. In 1997 the UK and Germany representative offices were opened. Nowadays both foreign and Latvian entrepreneurs can utilise the services of 12 representative offices throughout the world.
For the last 5 years the Latvian sheet metal processing company “Prometals” has been successfully cooperating with the LIAA representative office in Sweden and our in-house mechanical engineering and metalworking expert to reach over 3 million EUR exports in 2007 to Sweden alone. “Prometals” supplies Sandvik SRP with rock processing machines and BRUKS Klöckner with tubulator conveyers, to name just a few of their clients.
Recognising the importance of the State support and innovation in today’s business environment, LIAA took up the task of administrating the EU Structural Funds in 2004 followed by the Knowledge and Innovation System (ZINIS) department in 2006. Thus, we can proudly say that nowadays the Agency with its 227 professionals, 3 of whom are original team members, is a melting pot of experts, projects, experience and knowledge!
In 2005 LIAA received the highest recognition of its professional activity. The World Association of Investment Promotion Agencies (WAIPA) acknowledged LIAA as the best investment promotion agency in Central and Eastern Europe by awarding it the status of World Class Agency. This year WAIPA again recognized LIAA’s efforts in FDI-favourable policy advocacy.
While Latvia celebrated its 90th anniversary in November, employees at the Investment and Development Agency of Latvia (LIAA) have already been celebrating their agency’s 15th year in action. Throughout these 15 years LIAA has successfully become a professional and user-friendly State institution.
On September 7, 1993, a team of less than 10 people gathered to form the Latvian Development Agency (LDA) under the supervision of the Ministry of Economics. These truly one-stop-specialists were in charge of Latvia’s export promotion and FDI attraction back in the days when internet and e-mail were still more of a fiction than reality. The initial concept of the agency was built around that of the Invest in Ireland Agency, and a visit by the team to the Welsh Development Agency soon followed. During this visit the LDA pioneers learned for the first time about the operations and activities of an investment and export promotion agency, an experience that was quickly absorbed and readily implemented.
The very first investment project that the Agency worked with was a manufacturing unit for dry soluble non-alcoholic drink powders produced by a Chilean company Corpora Tres Montes. Their products – Zuko and Yupi – are still recognised by majority of Latvians. The production unit was officially opened at the end of 1997 with an investment of 15 million USD.
While the Agency was growing, both in numbers and success stories at its home base, so grew LIAA’s international presence. In 1997 the UK and Germany representative offices were opened. Nowadays both foreign and Latvian entrepreneurs can utilise the services of 12 representative offices throughout the world.
For the last 5 years the Latvian sheet metal processing company “Prometals” has been successfully cooperating with the LIAA representative office in Sweden and our in-house mechanical engineering and metalworking expert to reach over 3 million EUR exports in 2007 to Sweden alone. “Prometals” supplies Sandvik SRP with rock processing machines and BRUKS Klöckner with tubulator conveyers, to name just a few of their clients.
Recognising the importance of the State support and innovation in today’s business environment, LIAA took up the task of administrating the EU Structural Funds in 2004 followed by the Knowledge and Innovation System (ZINIS) department in 2006. Thus, we can proudly say that nowadays the Agency with its 227 professionals, 3 of whom are original team members, is a melting pot of experts, projects, experience and knowledge!
In 2005 LIAA received the highest recognition of its professional activity. The World Association of Investment Promotion Agencies (WAIPA) acknowledged LIAA as the best investment promotion agency in Central and Eastern Europe by awarding it the status of World Class Agency. This year WAIPA again recognized LIAA’s efforts in FDI-favourable policy advocacy.
