Riga Gains International Recognition as a Business Services City

The “CEE Business Services Awards 2021” event took place in the Polish city of Wrocław and online on Thursday, 15 April. During the event, Riga received the award for “Dynamic Rising City of the Year in the CEE Region”, the highest possible recognition for a city at this annual ceremony.

According to the Riga Investment and Tourism Agency (RITA), the achievements of the Latvian capital in the international business services centre (BSC) sector were assessed by a broad international jury of experts. In their view, Riga outperformed the other European cities competing for the title of City of the Year. Riga received this award for the first time, while in 2019 it received the “Rising City of the Year” award at this industry awards event.

Riga received this award thanks to a range of measures aimed at attracting investment and improving the business environment. Particular recognition was given to the initiative to establish RITA, which will make a significant long-term contribution to the city’s economy.

“This award is the result of several years of purposeful cooperation between the Riga City Council, the Investment and Development Agency of Latvia (LIAA), “ABSL Latvia”, the Ministry of Economics and other private-sector partners. The greatest satisfaction comes from the fact that the political leadership at both national and municipal level has understood the need to attract foreign direct investment. This has contributed both to the expansion of LIAA’s Investment Department and to the establishment of the Riga Investment and Tourism Agency, which in the long term will generate even more achievements to be proud of, as well as making a significant contribution to Latvia’s and Riga’s economies,” says R. Bogdanovs, Acting Director of RITA.

The Latvian branch of “DNB Bank ASA” was recognised as the International Business Services Centre of the Year in Latvia. It earned this title thanks to the lowest employee turnover rate in the sector, as well as in recognition of the company’s active work on process automation projects.

In addition to ecosystem development initiatives, several new BSC representatives also established operations in Riga last year, including “q.beyond”, a German IT company; “Swisscom”, Switzerland’s leading telecommunications provider; and “Norwegian Air”, a globally recognised airline.

Switzerland’s leading telecommunications services provider, “Swisscom”, established its second European DevOps centre in Riga, with the aim of reaching a workforce of 200 highly qualified IT specialists. They are also the first tenants in the “Z-Towers” office building, which offers views over the entire city.

The airline “Norwegian” decided to centralise its operations and establish an international services centre in Riga. The Norwegian “Air Resources Latvia” office manages the airline’s operations worldwide, taking over several activities previously outsourced.

The German IT company “q.beyond” established its business centre in Riga. It is focused on enabling clients to continue developing their business processes flexibly and efficiently. “q.beyond” focuses on three particularly fast-growing sub-services within the broader IT services market: Cloud & Colocation, SAP and IoT. In addition, “q.beyond” has experience in artificial intelligence, analytics, permissioned blockchain, 5G and NB-IoT. By combining all these service modules, “q.beyond” develops innovative service packages for the retail, manufacturing and energy sectors.

The “Circle K” business centre in Riga is expanding significantly by taking over servicing functions for the United States and Canada. A team of 130 people will serve 7,200 filling stations in North America.

Overall, around 50 BSCs operated in Latvia, employing more than 15,500 specialists. They primarily provide IT, finance, accounting and customer service functions. Existing BSCs continue to attract both local and foreign professionals, resulting in an annual average increase in sector employment of approximately 7–10%. One of the outstanding examples of expansion this year is the opening of a “Webhelp” office in Daugavpils, which hired more than 200 new employees within just three months.

This March, LIAA also introduced a “Green Corridor” for priority investment projects. Latvian companies from several sectors, including BSCs, may apply if their future investment and development plans in Latvia meet the minimum criteria. This will help shorten administrative processing times and promote the development of existing companies that meet the criteria. It is one of the important instruments facilitating the development in Latvia of both BSCs and other technologically advanced, export-oriented sectors. LIAA’s active work with Belarus since August last year demonstrates Latvia’s ability to attract technology companies, including innovative start-ups, as well as highly qualified specialists from other countries. Accordingly, LIAA will continue to use various channels to promote the development of the business environment and research in the country and the capital.

Author

Riga City Council Communications Department