Chief Executive Officer

For more than eight hundred years Riga has been a significant international center of commerce and cargo transshipment, with an important position among Baltic Sea east shore ports and successfully competing in the Baltic Sea basin and Riga Bay – the main crossroads of international traffic. Growth of transport services intensity in the Baltic Sea region enhances the competitive advantages of the Freeport of Riga ensuring transit cargo traffic between Russia, CIS, and European Union.

By well developed network of motorways and railway the Freeport of Riga is conveniently connected with key centers of cargo consumption and extraction-processing regions of the CIS and Russia. Significant geographical, i.e. distance, advantages of Riga compared to neighboring ports, provide better conditions for processing of received and transshipped cargoes. The fact that Latvia has border with Russia and Belarus plays an important role in developing stable and mutually beneficial business contacts. The Freeport of Riga continues its efficient development as a multifunctional port, providing all the possibilities for handling any type of cargo, except crude oil. Still the priority, set by the management of the Freeport of Riga , is dynamic development of all the territory of the port, especially free, unoccupied part of it, in the framework of the perspective development program, pursuant to recommendations and scenario, provided by TEBODIN BV (Masterplan). The Freeport of Riga has successfully joined the activities of IAPH, ESPO, BPO and other professional international institutions with the aim to promote more efficiently the services of the companies, working in the port and the transport infrastructure related to it.

Latvia has become an EU member state, the Latvian border with Russia and Belarus has become an external border of the EU with all relevant consequences. Latvia as a state, as well as the Freeport of Riga Authority as the ESPO member, have carried out all the necessary activities to be ready for the event since 1998, still there are various tasks to execute: to carry out all the site preparation works with the aim to create new terminals and industrial parks on the free parts of the Freeport territory, to attract foreign investors, to modernize infrastructure etc. The list of tasks can be continued, but there is a question – what is the purpose of our work? The answer is provided by the diligent work of local people who have managed to develop the port and enhance the activities of the shipping sector to make it one of the fundamental parts of Latvian economy. I am sure that EU membership will facilitate our work and make it more efficient, and all our partners, old and new, will benefit from our fruitful and mutually beneficial cooperation.

Leonīds Loginovs

Chief Executive Officer of the Freeport of Riga