Belarusian Businesses Offered Relocation to Latvia Through Fast-Track Visa Application Process

Posted date: 22 Jul 2021

Amid the ongoing protests in Belarus against the re-election of Alexander Lukashenko as its President, who has ruled the country for 26 years now, and is nicknamed as “Europe’s last dictator”, the Latvian authorities have decided to stretch out their hand to businesses in Belarus.

Latvia, one of the three neighbouring countries of Belarus that are also European Union Member States, has decided to offer the opportunity to Belarusian businesses to relocate to Latvia through fast-tracking visa application procedures.

The decision has been announced through a press release issued by the Latvian Investment and Development Agency (LIAA), which acts under the Ministry of Economics, and is responsible for promoting the growth of foreign investment, amongst others.According to Kaspars Rožkalns, the Director of the Latvian Investment and Development Agency, there is a growing interest of Belarusian entrepreneurs who are considering to completely or partially transfer their businesses in Latvia.

In order to help these businesses out, Director Rožkalns claims that the LIAA has mobilized all of its resources by helping to arrange the so-called start-up visas, providing consultations and real support for starting a business in Latvia.

He also notes, that Latvia is particularly interested in cooperation with Belarusian entrepreneurs in the fields of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), bio-economy, smart technologies, biomedicine and other medium or high technologies, but they are also open to other types of companies.

The LIAA lists several reasons why it is worth moving a business to Latvia, noting that there are over 6,500 companies in the ICT sector in Latvia, employing more than 40,000 people, the total turnover of which companies is 3.9 billion euros or 4.3 per cent of Latvia’s gross domestic product.

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GSP Admin