Mayor of Ventspils, Chairman of the Ventspils Freeport Aivars Lembergs pledges to keep an eye on how the Chairman of the Freeport of Riga Ainars Slesers (Latvia's First Party/Latvia's Way) will keep his promise to make the Riga Port a serious competitor to the Port of Ventspils.
According to Lembergs, over the past four year, five new terminals, that created 300 new jobs, have been built in Ventpils, writes LETA.
"Taking in consideration that, in terms of population, Riga is 20 times bigger than Ventspils, Slesers should be able to achieve opening of 100 new terminals and 6,000 new jobs at the Freeport of Riga. Over the last seven years, 19 new factories with 1,500 new workplaces started operating in Ventspils. Then, it would only be appropriate to expect Riga to open up 400 new plants, which would provide jobs for 30,000 new people. The total amount of public and private investments attracted to the Ventspils Port is LVL 360 million, respectively, the figure for Riga should be at LVL 7.2 billion," the mayor of Ventspils believes.
If Slesers can help to attain such results, then he deserves indeed to call himself a "a serious competitor", Lembergs pointed out.
As reported, Slesers believes that the Port of Riga will be a serious competitor to the Port of Ventspils now that he has been appointed the new board chairman of the port.
As Slesers recepointed out in an interview on Latvian State Television's morning news show ''Labrit Latvija!'' (''Good Morning Latvia!''), "Mr. Lembergs now has an honorable opponent."
After Slesers has become the new chairman of the Port of Riga, fierce competition is expected to between the two ports, as they compete for the same cargo.
According to Slesers, the entire community in Latvia will benefit from this competition.