The French writer Guy de Maupassant famously said that the view from the Eiffel Tower was the best in Paris – because it was the one place in the French capital where you didn't have to look at the Eiffel Tower, which he disliked.
Business is often talked about in terms of a willingness to take risks. There is high-risk, low-risk, calculated risk, counter-intuitive risk and even gut instinct risk. All those risks are undertaken in the anticipation of getting something in return. Quite where the profit lies in climbing the swaying 34-meter tall wooden tower that we are standing beside in a howling gale is not clear.
Latvia's government on August 7 approved participation at the 2020 Dubai Expo, with business representatives saying that sending and setting up a pavilion there would cost the country at least 6 million euros.
Applications are open for an unusual business event, even by the standards of startup culture: a Minsk-Riga Startup Train Hackathon.
Driving into Jelgava on the main road from Rīga, you might be forgiven for thinking you were in provincial Germany rather than central Latvia. At least three of the large, modern new factories lining the route have the black, red, gold of the German flag fluttering outside them on a sweltering day.
Hemmed in by the River Daugava on one side and railway line on the other, the town of Līvāni is long and thin. The river is long and thin. The railway is long and thin. The main road through the center of town between the two is long and thin, giving the impression to the people in the cars driving between Riga and Daugavpils that the town is much larger than it actually is.
Svente is 217 kilometers from Rīga, 2,400 km from Rome and 149,600,000 km from the Sun. This much one learns from the signpost just behind St Michael's Roman Catholic church in the center of the village. It is a hot day. The asphalt is melting along the edges of the road. Step onto it and you leave an imprint of the sole of your shoe that may be found by some future civilization who will wonder what you were doing here. They will not be able to guess, because what you are doing is awaiting the arrival of a mysterious Russian billionaire called Mr Krassky who will tell you all about his remarkably successful luxury business.
Direct flights from Latvia to China could be launched by the end of this year, Helmuts Kols, the Latvian Transport Ministry's representative in China said in an interview with Latvian Radio July 16.
Representatives of government, the tax authority and the construction industry met in Rīga July 13 to express their willingness to tackle the shadow economy by signing a Memorandum of Cooperation (MoC)
A long-running controversy about the long-term future of two major Latvian telecoms companies appeared to be temporarily smoothed July 12 when a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between the Government of the Republic of Latvia and Telia Company AB on the improvement of strategic coordination between SIA Lattelecom and SIA "Latvijas Mobilais Telefons" (LMT).
Cēsis looks good in the sunshine. It is a glorious spring day that feels more like a glorious summer day and the fountain in Rožu laukums pitters and patters invitingly. Every few minutes a child accepts the invitation by jumping in, prompting laughter and mock annoyance from parents.
This fall, the Baltic Real Estate Leadership or BREL Forum dedicated to the real estate sector will take place in Riga at the VEF Culture Palace on November 2. according to the organizers.
The Ministry of Finance (FM) has prepared proposals intended to increase the rights and protection of non-bank borrowers, the ministry said July 5.
The State Revenue Service inspected 821 stores and vendors this past June, ascertaining different violations in 94 percent of all cases, the LETA newswire reported July 5.
Ķīpsala is a strange place. An island in the middle of the River Daugava directly opposite Riga Castle, it would be reasonable to expect ot to be a sort of Latvian version of the Ile-de-France in the middle of the Seine in Paris: historic buildings, exclusive apartments, eye-watering property prices. Instead it manages to squeeze a complete panorama of Latvia into just less than 200 hectares.
Latvian startup Digipulse said July 2 it has launched the world's first "digital asset vault" that ensures safe, encrypted and decentralised storage and transfer of crypto wallets and other digital assets, including Bitcoin.
A new platform designed to encourage foreigners to form startup businesses in Latvia has opened.
“This is where we have our ghost, Charlotte,” says Egons Mednis, pointing at the end of a corridor on the first floor of Dikļi Manor, “she's from the seventeenth century.”
Prime Minister Māris Kučinskis told Latvian Radio June 21 he was prepared in principle to pay cash to farmers as a result of a period of dry weather this spring and summer, if it would save them from bankruptcy.
Skonto Prefab is a prefabricated concrete elements producer, founded in 2002 and based at an 8-hectare manufacturing site in Salaspils near Riga. But that's not where we are today. Concrete may be extremely useful but it is not the most poetic of materials. It would be hard to compose an Ode to Concrete or paint a magnificent landscape full of prefabricated concrete, even if it was livened up with a few dashes of steel reinforcement and cross-laminated timber.
Construction works have stopped at Rīga's tallest towers, the Z-Towers that look like enormous salt and pepper shakers, reported LTV June 6.
It is generally assumed that the chief benefit of running a profitable business is the ability to extract that profit and spend it on yourself in a manner that is either modest, immodest or downright luxurious, according to the level of profit achieved - and one's own appetite for the finer things in life.
Asked to explain their success in business, many of the more modest multi-millionnaires in the world say it was to a large extent a matter of being “in the right place at the right time”. One of the other popular sayings among high-fliers is “You make your own luck”.
A Latvian company that is pioneering the use of drones for firefighting and search and rescue applications has won a 10,000 euro prize dubbed the Latvian-American Innovation Award.
Children like to climb things. It might be a tree, a climbing frame, the stairs. In the case of Linda Riekstiņa-Šnore it was a wooden ladder leading to the loft of a tiny wooden house in the countryside beyond the city of Alūksne.
Jūlija Gifford takes a look at what's happening with blockchain - the buzzword that's been flying around the internet - in a Baltic and Latvian context.
No-one other than a serious fan of oil terminals and shunting yards would claim Venstpils is the most picturesque place in Latvia in February. Here, across the River Venta from the holding tanks, shunting yards and cranes is the city itself, which is certainly an improvement, if not exactly Shanghai. A driving blizzard and a temperature of -16 Celsius chills the large fiber-glass cows along the promenade that are an alleged tourist attraction.
The latest data compiled by the Central Statistical Bureau (CSB) show that, compared to the 1st quarter of 2017, in the 1st quarter of 2018 construction output increased by an impressive 35.7 % (according to calendar adjusted data at constant prices).
Lielvārde is a small town with a big name in Latvia, being best-known for its association with the epic poem Lāčplēsis about the eponymous Latvian hero. But to Juris Ščerbickis of D8 Corporation, this place on the banks of the River Daugava has associations other than battles with the Black Knight.
Over coming months, LSM will be running a weekly series of features about some of Latvia's most successful and innovative exporting companies. We have been visiting them at locations all across Latvia and hearing about the places they say are important to them. The series is produced in cooperation with The Red Jackets, the organization championing Latvia's leading export companies.