Stimulating Entrepreneurship in Rural Areas of Latvia

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Stimulating Entrepreneurship in Rural Areas of
Latvia
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Rural area of Latvia

• Covers 98 of the territory of Latvia
• 31 of the population lives in the rural area
• Population density 12 people per square
  kilometre

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Rural politics today

• The responsibility for the development of rural
  area is shared between ministries
• The main document is Rural Development
  Programme (adopted in 1998)
• Specially Supportable Regions Programme
• Rural Development Project (World Bank)
• Rural Partnership Programme
• SMEs development program
• Single Programming Document

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Financial Resources for the Development of Rural
Area

• Governmental support
• Direct payments
• Rural development plan

• EU Structural Funds
• European Regional Development Fund
• European Social Fund
• European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund
• Financial Instrument for Fisheries Guidance
• Single Programming Document

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Priorities of the Rural Development Plan 2004
-2006

• 1st priority development of effective, flexible
  and sustainable development of rural economy
• The aim - to support the projects promoting
  effective and flexible business activities in
  rural area and to ensure the improvement of
  economical conditions for inhabitants of rural
  territories
• 2nd priority preservation of biological
  diversity of rural areas
• The aim - to support the activities ensuring
  biologically diverse environment and quality of
  landscape

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Riga Region
Total area 10352.6 km city area 4 woods and
forests 47.4 agricultural area 32.
Population 1.1million inhabitants (47.4 of all
the inhabitants living in Latvia). 84 live in
Riga and towns of Riga region, but 16 - in the
rural area. Unemployment rate 6
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Density
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Density of Economic Activities
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Economy

• The largest contribution to the regions economy
  is made by the metropolis. The key sectors of
  economics are transit, finances, power industry,
  food production, wood-processing, furniture
  production, textile production and production of
  communication equipment. There are 27,695
  companies in the region, 98 of them are private
  enterprises. 76,4 of all the enterprises are SME
  (enterprises with up to 9 employees).

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Business Development Problems in the Rural
Territory of Riga Region

• Undeveloped infrastructure (roads, IT)
• Insufficient qualification of labour resources
• Undeveloped cooperation links, networks
• Few businesses with high added value
• Lack of foreign investments
• Problems with overqualification, i.e, farming is
  still the main employment field
• Small density of population (7 - 12)
• Undeveloped business support networks

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Business Technology Park TUKUMS

• 500 ha to Make Your Dreams Come True

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Location

• 50 km from Riga, the capital of Latvia
• Bordered with Tukums, the centre of district
• 5 km from railway station "Tukums",
• the significant cargos trans-shipment point
• The cross point of important higways
• Riga Ventspils and Jelgava Tukums
• 200 000 people within 90 minutes radius can
  reach the object by highway connections

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Potencial Regional Labor Force
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Goal

• To create well developed knowledge based business
  area in the former military airfield Tukums

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Objectives

• To elaborate the trends in the business and
  territorial development
• To establish the concept and strategy of BTP
  development
• To establish the socio-economic plan of the
  territory

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Advantages

• Business industrial park
• Transportation
• Distribution centres
• Logistics
• Centre of competences
• Garden and landscape services
• Professional training services
• Recycling
• Wood industry

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Main Tasks to Develop the Rural Area

• To increase the capacity of human resources
• To facilitate the co-operation among NGOs
• To make the network of support centres with the
  aim to develop entrepreneurship
• The involvement of inhabitants in the
  implementation of activities in the local level

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Key issues

• To increase the awareness of people living in the
  rural areas
• To provide information on investment programmes
  and financial opportunities
• To activate the capacity of local action groups
• To facilitate attractive projects
• To increase the capacity of competitiveness in
  the labour market
• To establish the network of coordinators
• To develop the possibility to use information
  technologies in rural areas
• To attract the attention of government to the
  problems in rural areas
• To build partnership among different sectors
• To solve social problems

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Gain profit from changes, do not become their
victim. (Brian Tracy)
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Thanks for your attention!

• DACE GRINBERGA
• Tel. [phone]
• rajpadome_at_tukums.parks.lv
• Tukums district council
• Head of the Regional Development
  Centre