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Roundup: Businesspeople gather for EU Eastern Partnership Business Forum in Riga

Xinhua, May 22, 2015 Adjust font size:

Business leaders from 39 countries of the European Union (EU), Eastern Partnership states and other parts of the world gathered in the Latvian capital for the 3rd Eastern Partnership Business Forum on Thursday.

The aim to of the forum was to explore solutions for development of favorable business environment in the region and build sustainable cooperation in sectors such as transport, finance, energy and the digital industry.

Vitalijs Gavrilovs, the president of the Employers' Confederation of Latvia (LDDK) and vice-president of Businesseurope, indicated at the forum that Europe regarded the Eastern Partnership as a tool for promoting European values in a wider region.

"This is correct, but as far as business is concerned, meetings with Eastern Partnership countries' business organizations and the development of these countries have shown that so far we have not managed to use the whole potential the Eastern Partnership should provide to promote entrepreneurship and trade in the region," Gavrilovs said.

LDDK spokeswoman Una Grenevica said that business recommendations for the further development of cooperation had been worked out at the forum and that they would be presented to political leaders participating in the Eastern Partnership Summit in Riga this week.

Latvian President Andris Berzins called for the creation of an economically integrated trade and investment area that in the Eastern Partnership context would provide the opportunity to develop trade and transport infrastructure, connecting the Baltic and Black Sea regions.

The Latvian president also noted the need for common efforts to create modern regional transport corridors for the highly perspective European-Asian multimodal linkages and to seize opportunities for further cooperation with Central Asian states with which Latvia has been busily building close contacts lately.

Informing about the launch of new support programs in Eastern Partnership countries, European Commissioner for European Neighborhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations Johannes Hahn stressed the important role of entrepreneurship, saying that peace is only possible when a certain level of prosperity is achieved so that people can feel materially secure and content.

Hahn also pointed out that the Eastern Partnership was not a one-way cooperation and that it required reciprocity.

Other keynote speakers at the conference included Werner Hoyer, president of the European Investment Bank (EIB) and Jacek Piotr Krawczyk, president of the Employers' Group at the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC).

The 3rd Eastern Partnership Business Forum was organized by the Latvian Presidency of the EU Council and Businesseurope. Endit