Today about 290 companies make up the Latvian electrical engineering and electronics (E&E) industry. Companies in Latvia manufacture products such as advanced acoustic systems and related accessories, wireless data transmission equipment, and other telecommunications systems, industrial optics, nuclear electronics, electronics control, and monitoring devices used in many industrial and scientific applications. The high proportion of exports in relation to output (approximately 89 %) and the variety of export destination countries indicate the competitiveness of the Latvian electronics industry in the international arena.
Subsectors
The Latvian E&E industry can be divided into five main subsectors:
- Radio, television, telecommunication, and data transmission equipment.
- Electronic components (including automotive components).
- Heavy-current electrical technology (electrical machines and equipment, e.g., electric distribution and installation systems and accessories, electric motors and generators, cables, etc.).
- Instruments and automation equipment (e.g., medical, optical, precision-measuring, radiation and time measuring devices, industrial services).
- Computer technology (computers and other equipment for information processing).
While the industry can be roughly divided in this way, the lines are not sharply drawn. The communications sector, for instance, makes switches used to run telephone networks that are essentially specialized computers. Control units and software developed for computers have come to be used in consumer electronics, while high-volume manufacturing techniques have been invented in the consumer electronics industry and applied to other sectors.
Statistics
The production of electrical and optical equipment has developed rapidly: the sector’s output has tripled since 2005 and has remained stable in recent years. Total E&E industry output in 2020 exceeded EUR 800 million.
Exports of electronic goods from Latvia were EUR 695.5 million in 2020. The growing proportion of exports in relation to industry output indicates the competitiveness of the Latvian electronics industry in the international arena.
Almost half of the export markets for the electronic products made in Latvia are EU countries, comprising 41% of sector exports. In 2020, the most important export countries are Russia, USA and Germany; in total, Latvian companies export electronic products to 144 countries all over the world.