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The President of the Republic at the Estonian-Latvian Roundtable on Business Riga, December 7, 200507.12.2005
Honourable Madam President,
Excellencies,
Ladies and gentlemen!
The state visit to Latvia is a special event in every respect, as it is not just a visit to our neighbouring country, but to a country with whom we have long-standing and close cooperation almost in every field of life - including economy.
The trade exchange between Estonia and Latvia is brisk and Latvia is a significant target country for Estonia's direct investments. Over a thousand enterprises with Estonian participation have been registered in Latvia. This is why I presume that today's discussions on the possibilities of deepening our cooperation will be content-rich and constructive.
The main topic of today's roundtable is the maintenance and enhancement of competitiveness. At the global level it is evident that there are less and less restrictions and limitations on foreign investments. This will widen the range of choices for investors and will increase competition between the countries - also competition between Estonia and Latvia.
It can seem that the word "competition" directly refers to rivalry, but in case of Estonia and Latvia there is no need to be rivals in a fight where there are winners and losers. In my opinion, the cooperation between our countries is the key to enhancing our competitiveness in an ever-globalising world.
The key words we have used to describe Estonian economy are liberal economic policy, low taxes, e-Government, and qualified labour. Surely, all those keywords can be used also while talking about Latvia. The longer the distance from where one looks at the Baltic states the more similar our economies look.
Our being similar is an advantage that can help us to attract the attention of bigger foreign investors also from more distant countries. One of such joint initiatives could be inviting US investors to come here in spring 2006.
I certainly attach importance to the creation of regional enterprise clusters. At the recent Baltic Development Forum in Stockholm, there was a lot of talk about the idea of using the diversity of economies in the Baltic Sea region as a development engine. The fact that major Finnish and Swedish companies and their subsidiaries have expanded their activities all over the region indicates to our capability to do this. And the most successive ones have managed to take advantage of the knowledge and contacts of Estonian and Latvian enterprises and specialists.
Since our accession to the European Union, the conditions for cross-border regional cooperation have improved, including the cooperation between northern Latvia and southern Estonia. Using that opportunity will offer not only much broader room for activities but also an additional development incentive, which in its turn might be facilitated by the introduction of a single currency, the euro.
I assure you that I firmly believe in multi-faceted and successful cooperation between Estonia and Latvia in the future, and now allow me to wish this roundtable fruitful discussion!
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