The economic and financial crisis that started in 2008 seems to be on its way to being overcome by many EU member states, but the population in some of the most touched countries is still labouring under the ongoing effects of the slowdown. Latvia, which underwent an annualised decline of 18% of GDP in the first quarter of 2009 and still has the highest unemployment rate in the EU, is experiencing a veritable revolution in its population structure and is preparing to face serious demographic challenges.
The strong recession experienced in the last few years has sadly confirmed the high propensity of Latvian people to migrate for economic reasons and generated a real “exodus” of working age population.
Guest Post by Morten Hansen, Stockholm School of Economics in Riga
Here in Latvia the internal devaluation continues and the debate is whether the economy is flexible enough for this experiment. I say perhaps it is, Edward says perhaps it isn’t but one thing is for sure: the Latvian economy is (possibly perversely) indeed flexible. I would like to illustrate this point with a series of numbers for the extremes that we have witnessed in Latvia so in the following I list a series of macroeconomic variables and the times at which they were at their extremes during the boom and during the current bust. After that I try a little discussion of why the
A recent Latvia-China business forum generated further enthusiasm on developing bilateral economic relations. At the forum held on 12 July the Chinese and Latvian business people and officials exchanged their views. The forum was focus on finding new ways to boost Sino-Latvia trade and widen bilateral economic cooperation. Jointly sponsored...
"...although Iceland is generally considered to have experienced the worst financial crisis in history, its punishment has actually been substantially less than that of other nations."
To back it up, Krugman provided a chart (below) comparing the GDP of Iceland toIreland, Latvia, and Estonia since the 4th quarter
At a business forum, Mitko Aleksov, president of the Alliance of Economic Chambers of Macedonia, said that the trade between Macedonia and Latvia should be increased considerably.Currently, the trade between the two countries is worth around USD 1m, which represents an insignificant 0.02 percent of Macedonia’s trade with the EU, he said. Thus, the value of trade between Macedonia and Latvia can and needs to be increased, he added. The business forum between the Macedonian and Latvian businesses was held as part of the visit by Latvian President Valdis Zatlers.(Makfax)Source/Author PressCut
It was only last week we were talking about how the the DST-Naspers-Tencent nexus is driving online media investment in Russia, China, eastern Europe and, increasingly, the Valley. Now there’s some further investment activity between two of the three…
South African media corp Naspers is giving over $388 million and a 39.3 percent in Mail.ru for a 28.7 percent stake in Digital Sky Technologies (announcement).
This gives DST 99.9 percent of the Russian portal and email service Mail.ru. But giving up Mail.ru also gives Naspers a.....
With the confidence of someone who will not be held accountable if his advice is followed, Paul Krugman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist, has been arguing in his New York Times column and blog that the Canadian- and European-led consensus at the G-20 meetings towards belt-tightening will cause another Great Depression. He invokes Keynesian theory to argue for a cookie-cutter approach to running deficits in order to avoid Herbert Hoover-style deficit reduction. To support his point, he cites Ireland and Latvia's short-term spikes in unemployment, economic swoons and high interest rates since they cut
The energy wing of the German engineering giant Siemens Energy recently bagged an order for a condensing steam turbine generator from Latvia. The generator would be used to supply the Latvian capital Riga with district heat and electrical energy in the Riga TPP-2 combined cycle co-generating facility a statement from...
Latvia would have no problem with EU supervision of its national budget and was ready to support the idea of bloc level surveillance of national budgets at the impending summit of EU leaders media reports revealed last week. The governments official stance in this respect was approved on 15 June....
Law enforcement authorities in Latvia confirmed on 6 June they had arrested five senior executives of the state-owned power utility Latvenergo following a raid on the companys headquarters Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa reported. Among those arrested was Latvenergo CEO Karlis Mikelsons one of the highest-profile businessmen in the Baltic states. Officers...
Statistics, compiled by SNL Financial from U.S. Treasury data, showed 91 banks and thrifts skipped the May dividend payment under the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP. It was the first missed payment for 23 of the banks; for the others, it was at least their second miss.
The number of banks missing their TARP payments rose for the third straight quarter. In February, 74 banks deferred their payments; 55 deferred last November. SNL Financial's analysis found 20 banks have missed four or more payments since the program began in 2008, while eight banks have missed five payments.
While many of the largest U.S. banks easily repaid.....
Latvia will have to trim up to 440 million lats $730 million off its budget in 2011 if it is to bring its massive deficit into line with earlier pledges international lenders including the European Union said on 7 June. After years of runaway spending Latvia fell into financial crisis in...
These days we all have much in common with Pavlov's dog: we all are programmed to sell stocks at 3:00 pm whether there is news or not. Yesterday there was news, and it was disappointing. I realize consumers pulled back their spending last year in scenes reminiscent of Custer's last encounter, as many households awoke to a reality that they had spent too much and took on too many financial obligations. Many were able to circle the wagons in time, others were not, and now there is a large swath of people that found an escape route where they simply will not pay certain financial obligations (mainly their homes) as they mark time before a new adjustment in lifestyle. There is no doubt that demand for credit decreased, but it didn't evaporate! Is there a single person out there that
Headlines label the Euro crisis as one caused by sovereign debt. Unfortunately, the problems in the most affected countries—Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, and Spain (GIIPS) and other smaller economies pegged to the euro, such as Latvia—are much more severe than just fiscal profligacy.
At its heart, the crisis was created by a misallocation of resources among and within countries and a loss of competitiveness that resulted from—and was in many cases concealed by—the economic boom associated with the adoption of the euro a decade ago. Today’s fiscal problems are in large part the consequence, rather than the cause, of these changes, a fact that policy makers
The U.S. private sector corporate debt, mainly held in risky junk bonds at approximately $1.4 trillion, is facing the daunting task of being repaid or rolled over. Loans that were made during 2005/2007 and that are now coming due. The main problem being the underlying asset collateral has no, or vastly reduced, perceived value except in the minds of those who are continuing the fantasy of mark to make believe.
Compounding this looming problem is the added sovereign debt at risk, starting with Iceland in 2008, then moving to Latvia, Ireland, Dubai in 2009, and now Greece. This wave is now rolling over Spain, Portugal, United Kingdom and continues west to a number
Google’s (GOOG) stock has been punished thus far in calendar 2010, falling more than 20% from its 52-week high. Some of that can be blamed on the recent correction, but with the broad market indexes just about even for the year there is obviously something more. Much of the pessimism toward the internet search giant is related to its pullback from the lucrative Chinese market after a throwdown over censorship, and Google’s pain has been Baidu‘s (BIDU) gain as their shares have grown nearly 80% already this year. Some of this shift in valuation is certainly warranted, especially for Baidu, however we think that the reaction has created an opportunity
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