Latvia’s state real estate management company, Valsts Nekustamie Ipasumi (VNI), will speed up the construction of a fence on the country’s border with Belarus, LSM reports. VNI’s board chairman, Renars Griskevics, said that VNI would build 85.9 km of the fence in autumn 2023 and the remaining 80.6 km by the end of 2024. The…
Latvia’s State Security Service (VDD) is investigating whether the decision of Latvian gas company Latvijas Gaze’s shareholder meeting to pay dividends to one of the company’s owners, Itera Latvija, violates EU sanctions on Russia, LETA reports, citing TV3. VDD stressed that providing financial resources to sanctioned entities, directly or indirectly, was prohibited. Latvijas Gaze insisted…
Residents of Bauska municipality in southern Latvia are worried about plans to build a large wind farm in Lithuania near the Skaistkalne sinkhole zone, LSM reports. Anita Rozentale, editor of the regional newspaper, Bauskas Dzive, said that the wind farm would be located only 1.2 km from the sinkhole area. There is a sinkhole zone…
The number of schools in Latvia’s capital city of Riga will be the same in the school year 2023/2024 as in the previous year, LSM reports. Riga will have altogether 101 schools. However, 7 schools will no longer have grades 10 to 12, and they will gradually become primary and secondary schools. The number of…
Latvia’s State Revenue Service (VID) has published a list of the country’s 17 largest corporate taxpayers, Baltic News Network reports. VID highlighted the largest taxpayers in the large, medium, and small business segments in Latvia’s five regions. The country’s biggest taxpayer in 2022 was Polish-owned fuel trader Orlen Latvija, which paid 278.95mn in taxes. In…
The municipal water utility of the Latvian port city of Liepaja, Liepajas Udens, has managed to stop the leakage of raw sewage from its wastewater plant into the Baltic Sea, LSM reports. The company has resumed the operation of the wastewater treatment plant on a temporary basis. Earlier, part of a wall of a sewage…
The Estonian Competition Authority (Konkurentsiamet) has approved Finnish meat processing group HKScan’s sale of its Baltic businesses to Estonia’s Maag Grupp, LSM reports. However, Maag Grupp will have to sell two of its major food brands, Rannamõisa and Rannarootsi Lihatööstus, ERR reports. Under the deal signed in December 2022, Maag Grupp will acquire HKScan’s Rakvere…
Experts expect the growth of food prices in Latvia to continue falling, LETA reports. Noris Kruzitis, head of the Latvian Food Retailers Association (LPTA), projected that the growth of food prices would continue to slow down by 3-4 percentage points in the coming months. Inguna Gulbe, head of the Agricultural Market Promotion Centre (LTVC), said…
Latvia’s Health Ministry has proposed amendments to further restrict the availability of alcohol, LSM reports. The amendments would reduce the sales hours of alcoholic beverages, ban sales of alcohol at petrol stations, and raise the legal drinking age to 20 years. The ministry hopes that the amendments will reduce alcohol consumption, illness, injuries, and mortality….