But there is another side to this coin. Some of the largest Latvian companies, publicly known through famous Latvian brands, have not belonged to Latvia for a long time. It seems that perhaps too many companies are no longer owned.
This information was compiled some time ago, but everything happens dynamically in business: shares tend to change from hand to hand, and maybe yesterday they belonged to one person, but today they belong to another. The percentages listed in any of these companies may no longer be accurate. However, most of the owners are indeed the ones named here.
These companies are doing well, which is good. These companies pay taxes due to the Latvian budget, which is also positive. However, investors invest or spend corporate profits (a large portion of them) in other countries. Is a state budget with a positive balance unlikely in such a situation? This result of the sale of companies has been achieved in the 30 years that our wise, just, honest politicians have acted in the name of the people. One thing is a foreign owner who comes to Latvia, builds a new factory here, opens a branch of his company. However, a large part of these 15 are companies that previously operated under their own brand, but for some reason were forced to sell all or part of it to a foreign investor.
Is this direction to attract such investments the right one? This shows that the previous owners did not have enough support from the state, there was no favorable economic environment for them to exist on their own. Of course, it is good that there have been foreigners who have bought these companies. In other cases, the companies have gone bankrupt and already forgotten. However, this trend does not bode well for Latvia’s ability to defend its own interests and those of its people. Furthermore, companies are one thing, but much of the agricultural land and forest is also mostly owned by Scandinavian and German citizens or their companies.
The fact that some Latvian companies are already owned by foreigners, the reasons why this happened and whether it is good that such a sales process continues, is it not at least worthy of discussion in Latvian “politics”? Especially considering that a new Saeima has been elected and a government at least partially restored is expected.
