RIGA - Riga's 'taxi wars' making recent headlines reflect the overall business situation in Latvia, says Chairwoman of the Latvian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) Zanete Jaunzeme-Grende, reports news agency LETA. "The 'taxi wars' are a mirror where, in a simplified way, we see not only the business, but also the political environment in Latvia," she said.
She points out that in Finland, for example, "such confrontations would not even be imaginable, considering that the business environment there is well developed, and a different corporate culture prevails. Taxi drivers [in Latvia] see how politicians buy support and votes from each other, eventually they start to see it as the norm and want to have their share."
Criticizing airBaltic, she also said that it is wrong to tell tourists or investors, on their flight to Latvia, to choose the services of a certain taxi company, claiming that the other firms are bad or fraudulent, because this means that tourists, before their arrival to Riga, will start to worry about what kind of country they are coming to. Investors in turn will consider this a lack of free competition and begin to believe that they have to "pay someone" to get things done.
As previously reported, on Sept. 3 shots were fired from a passing car in a drive-by shooting against a Baltic Taxi cab traveling from the airport. The driver was not injured, though several windows were shattered. In the center of Riga the day before, cab drivers from an aggressive rival company harassed a Baltic Taxi driver, blocking her cab and slashing a tire.
The larger problem, says Jaunzeme-Grende, is one of an expensive and inefficient state administration that reduces the competitiveness of Latvia's entrepreneurs. She says that entrepreneurs who are willing to export their production are forced to waste time and energy dealing with "various bureaucratic burdens and are left with little time to think of how to boost their competitiveness abroad."
Jaunzeme-Grende says "The state should change its attitude towards entrepreneurs, it should motivate and support them, showing that enterprising people are important to the country."
Commenting on the expected changes in taxation and the possible impact on the business environment, she feels that more tax modeling is needed as the impact of tax hikes stretches beyond the sector on which the tax is directly imposed on.
In her opinion, overall, the tax system in Latvia can be assessed positively, however, some of its aspects should be considered more thoroughly. "Sooner or later it would have been necessary to introduce the property tax on real estate, but the question remains whether now is really the best time," she concludes.
