Latvia

government
- Investment and Development Agency of Latvia (LIAA)

• has rep office in china

association
- baltic hong kong trade association http://bhkta.org/, http://russiahk.com/main.php?id=1&nid=64

• business seminar “Hong Kong – your corporate base in Asian-Pacific Region” http://bhkta.org/index.php?id=9

Company
- bank

• ABLV Bank, AS is one of the largest private banks in the Baltic states, headquartered in Riga, Latvia with representative offices abroad.ABLV was sanctioned by the United States for facilitating prohibited transactions for North Korea.^[3] The bank has been banned from the American financial network.

• https://www.reuters.com/article/us-latvia-banking/ablv-owners-to-liquidate-bank-to-protect-assets-and-clients-idUSKCN1GA2NS

• notice on creditors' application appledaily 29jun18

- orange company

• Participated in 2016 hktdc toy fair

trade and investment environment
- energy

• http://www.baltictimes.com/latvia_officially_opens_its_gas_market/ The amendments to the Energy Law providing for the opening of Latvia’s gas market are taking effect today. Legal entities will have to pick a new natural gas supplier by June 15, 2017, but households will not be required to choose a new gas supplier or to pay the market price for natural gas. The households which elected to keep buying gas from the existing supplier, Latvijas Gaze natural gas utility, would receive gas at a regulated price determined by the regulator until 2019.
  Altogether, 15 companies had registered with the regulator as gas suppliers by March 31. They included Latvian companies Latvijas Gaze, Latvenergo, Enefit, AJ Power Gas, ESK Sistemas, Euro Energo Company, Frenzo, GEG, Latvijas Propana Gaze, Rigas Gaze, Scener, Daugavpils Siltumtikli and WIN Balitc, as well as Lithuanian companies Lietuvos Duju Tiekimas and Litgas.

Trade resources

- export and import directory http://www.exim.lv/


Choir
- http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2016/04/international-music

latvian (language)
- https://www.quora.com/Is-Latvian-a-Slavic-language

nationalism
- The Latvian National Awakening (Latvian: latviešu [or latvju] tautas atmoda) refers to three distinct but ideologically related National revival movements:^[1]

• the First Awakening refers to the national revival led by the Young Latvians from the 1850s to the 1880s,
• the Second Awakening or "New Current" was the movement that led to the proclamation of Latvian independence in 1918,^[2] and
• the Third Awakening was the movement that led to the restoration of Latvia's independence in the "Singing Revolution" of 1987–1991.

- Though the term "Awakening" was introduced by the Young Latvians themselves, its application was influenced by the nationalist ideologue Ernests Blanks and later by the academician Jānis Stradiņš.^[4] Stradiņš was the first person to use the term "Third Awakening" (at the expanded plenum of the Writers' Union of the Latvian SSR in June 1988), opposing those who had begun to call the national revival in the period of glasnost the Second Awakening (the first being that of the Young Latvians).Blanks sought to distinguish between the New Current (in Latvian: Jaunā strāva) — a broad and radical socio-economic, political, and cultural movement that lasted from the late 1880s until the 1905 Revolution, led by Rainis and influenced by Marxism — from the more nationalistic direction taken in 1903 by Ernests Rolavs and Miķelis Valters; to Blanks, the 1890s "could be stricken completely from the history of national thought." He saw Rolavs' and Valters' nationalist Latvian Social Democratic Union (in Latvian: Sociāldemokratu savienība; sometimes abbreviated SDS) — a radical socialist group critical of the cosmopolitanism of the Latvian Social Democratic Workers' Party (Latvijas sociāldemokrātiskā strādnieku partija; LSDSP) — as the direct ideological descendants of the Young Latvians. It was the SDS (and especially Valters) that first began to formulate demands for Latvia's political autonomy.


history
- After centuries of Swedish, Livonian, Polish and Russian rule, a rule mainly executed by the Baltic German aristocracy, the Republic of Latvia was established on 18 November 1918 when it broke out and declared independence from Russia during the aftermath of World War I.^[2] However, by the 1930s, the country became increasingly autocratic after the coup in 1934 establishing an authoritarian regime under Kārlis Ulmanis. The country's de facto independence was interrupted at the outset of World War II, beginning with Latvia's forcible incorporation into the Soviet Union, followed by the invasion and occupation by Nazi Germany in 1941, and the re-occupation by the Sovietsin 1944 to form the Latvian SSR for the next fifty years. The peaceful Singing Revolution, starting in 1987, called for Baltic emancipation from Soviet rule and condemning the "Stalinist" regime's illegal takeover.^[17] It ended with the Declaration on the Restoration of Independence of the Republic of Latvia on 4 May 1990, and restoring de facto independence on 21 August 1991.

Russia
- history

• In 1795, with the third partition of poland, the former duchy of kurland became the third so-called german province in russian empire. Polish livonia (inflantry) had already been cede to russia during the first partition in 1772. It preservedcatholicism, but not its provincial autonomy, as it was fully incorporated into the vitebsk governorate of russia.

- Baltic states continue bolstering their frontiers with Latvia reporting the competition of the first 23km segment of a wire fence on its 276km border with Russia, designed to prevent “illegal immigrants” from breaching the perimeter.
Latvia’s fence construction began in 2015 and the first 23km section is ready, according to local media reports, citing State Border Guards spokeswoman Evgeniya Poznyak. The Latvian government has allocated an additional €6.3 million on the construction and is seeking to build 60km of fence in 2017.https://www.rt.com/news/376347-latvia-migrant-fence-russia/
- Russian chocolate maker Pobeda Confectionary opened the first ever Russian chocolate factory in Latvia. The practice is becoming a trend for Russian companies focused on consumer markets. http://sputniknews.com/europe/20160218/1034953476/russia-latvia-chocolate-factory.html#ixzz40cxM351j

Poland
- present day latgale region in eastern latvia was a separate province (livonia transdunensis or duchy of inflanty) in times when parts of livland were in polish lithuanian hands. In addition, duchy of kurland was created south of daugava river, functioning as a semi- independent vassal state of poland- lithuania.


China
- leaders visit

• http://paper.takungpao.com/resfile/PDF/20161105/PDF/a7_screen.pdf, http://paper.takungpao.com/resfile/PDF/20161107/PDF/a8_screen.pdf premier li

- railway

• http://europe.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2016-11/06/content_27287100.htm first trans-Eurasia container train linking China and Latvia from yiwu

- dairy products

• http://edairynews.com/en/food-union-launches-export-of-dairy-products-to-china-48595/ Parallel to ice cream export, Latvia’s leading dairy company Food Union has commenced regular exports of dairy products to China, consolidating its positions in Shanghai supermarkets. Food Union is the first dairy company in the Baltic countries that has been able to bring its milk products to the Chinese market, Food Union representative told BC. 

- http://www.ecns.cn/business/2014/11-06/141624.shtml Chinese investors are being forced out of Latvian property market because they are required to pay a hefty price to get the residence permit for a foreigner to invest in the country's property market, local media reported on Wednesday. Mihails Parinovs, head of Latvia's Padva, Parinov un Partneri law firm, told LETA that the cost for applying for Latvian residence permits in return for investment in real estate has been raised to 250,000 euros, which they find too high. Before September 1, 2014, when the amendments to the Latvian immigration law raising the price threshold came into effect, most Chinese investors had been buying properties in Latvia for 70,000 euros apiece, which was the lowest price at which they could also obtain the residence permits.
- chinese language

• http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/epaper/2017-05/03/content_29184487.htmThe 14th Chinese Bridge language proficiency competition in Latvia was held at the University of Latvia in late April.

Hong kong
- investors from hk

• 遠東化工hket 14jul15 a20, http://pdf.wenweipo.com/2016/11/11/a19-1111.pdf