OREANDA-NEWS. On 12 October 2011 the Bank of Latvia will host its annual conference on economic development. This year it is entitled "Global Challenges and Local Opportunities: Achievements and Prospects in the Baltic States", reported the press-centre of Bank of Latvia.   

Ilmars Rimsevics, Governor of the Bank of Latvia, will open the conference with his introductory statement.

In the context of finding solutions to the euro area debt crisis the presentation "Economic Adjustment in a Monetary Union" by Dr. oec. Jurgen Stark, a Member of the Executive Board and the Governing Council of the European Central Bank, will definitely be most interesting for the conference participants (both those present at the conference and watching it on-line). Jurgen Stark is a well-known European economist, one of the architects of the European single currency.

As usual, the conference will further proceed in two parts, providing viewpoints and a discussion by international experts and domestic market players.

Part I "Economic developments in Europe and their implications for the Baltic States: academic and policy perspective" will be dedicated to the analysis of the introduction of the euro – the recently implemented changeover to the single EU currency in Estonia and the prospective one in Latvia. Marten Ross, Advisor to the Bank of Finland, will be one of the panellists. From 2000 until 2011 he was Vice President of the Bank of Estonia, thus contributing to the euro changeover process. On the basis of his experience he will present his opinion on how Estonia achieved its macroeconomic stability and even strengthened it under the global financial and European debt crises.

In Part II "Latvia's exports: potential, challenges and future prospects" the presentations by representatives of a company, an industrial association, a bank and a public institution promoting exports will enable us to judge about the long-term sustainability of the pronounced export growth achieved to date, to identify the weak links in the chain and discuss practical activities to be undertaken to improve corporate competitiveness.

Conference materials are available on the Bank of Latvia's websites at bank.lv and macroeconomics.lv. Currently the conference programme and information about the speakers are available there. These sites will also provide an opportunity to watch the conference on-line and remotely participate in the discussions.

Participation in the conference is by invitation only. The conference will be held at the hotel "Radisson Blu Daugava".