On Monday, February 29, Mrs Banashri Bose Harrison, the Ambassador of the Republic of India to Sweden and Latvia, accompanied by state officials and businessmen, visited the Freeport of Riga. The Freeport of Riga Authority says the visit to the Freeport was organized to explore the opportunity to develop a cargo distribution and consolidation center on Kundzinsala. It is planned to create a multi-functional cargo handling, warehouse and logistics centre in the framework of the “Kundzinsala northern project”. Implementation of the project is scheduled in 3 stages in the period from 2015 to 2025. The project provides for the creation of the cargo distribution and consolidation center that will serve northern European, Russian and the CIS markets. It should be noted that during the period from 2010 to 2020 it is planned to develop the territory of 181 hectares, investing 460 million euros.
During the visit to the port, the Indian delegation met Mr.Arturs Brokovskis-Vaivods, the Freeport Harbour Master and Mr. Edgars Suna, the Deputy CEO of the Freeport of Riga and the Manager of the Department of Marketing. The port management representatives spoke about the favourable aspects of potential cooperation, highlighting such important issues as a strategic port location, as well as the high quality of services provided by the Freeport. Indian business is primarily interested in the development of warehouses in the Freeport of Riga territory, thus enhancing the Indian export channel potential in Europe.
Foreign businessmen and investor involvement suggests that the Freeport of Riga has a huge potential to become an important east-west transit hub, and relevant development of infrastructure and logistics services can increase the role of Latvia in growing global competition environment.
Indian guests have expressed interest to import both dairy products and timber from Latvia to India. So far, India's main exports to the EU are textiles, agricultural products, chemicals, while imports from the EU - products of the chemical industry and related industries, machinery and mechanical appliances. The delegation consisted of Mrs. Banashri Bose Harrison, the Ambassador of the Republic of India to Sweden and Latvia, Mr. Vijai Kumar, First Secretary of the Embassy, as well as of Latvian and Indian business representatives.