Baltic life a "super good product" but poorly promoted

Take note – story published 6 years ago

A discussion that took place in Riga recently considered what the Baltic states have to offer when it comes to competing for highly-trained and talented individuals as part of migration policy. The conclusion: the Baltics should be an attractive proposition but seem very poor at communicating that attractiveness.

In an interview published on the website of the Providus center for public policy, Kristjan Lepik of MOVE Guides, a company specializing in providing information to economic migrants and companies seeking to relocate, said the Baltic states had several marketable qualities.

"I was really surprised when I came to Riga two years ago. [There were] lots of capital/business attraction projects but nobody in the city government or LIAA [Latvian Investment and Development Agency] is dealing with talent attraction. That is changing now a bit. Considering how hard the Western European cities are working on this, there needs to be a much stronger effort," said Lepik.  

"I think sometimes in the Baltics we forget what an amazing place we have in the terms of nature, clean water and clean air and how close are the forests. 

"I was in Riga last year speaking at the Stockholm School of Economics conference, there was Morten Hansen [Head of Economics Department] on the panel with me and he said - who wants to come here? I said - you are Danish and you are here, people are very different in the world. Around 10 million people can move in Europe but only one million has moved. If we get 10% out of that one million in Europe to come to the Baltics, that would be 100 000 people. We cannot manage that. So if only 1% of all the movers in Europe want to come here that is already enough. So now the question is how to sell that, how to be visible to them and how to have companies who are willing to hire from abroad and integrate those people."

You can read the fill interview HERE.

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