Students of Faculty of Economics and Management, University of Latvia receive the prestigious awards of Latvian Economic Development Forum.

In the building of Riga Latvian Society the annual awards of Latvian Economic Development Forum (LEDF) were presented. This competition in its 12 years of existence has become a valued brand in the Latvian universities and has allowed introducing to a wider public high quality researches on various important topics for the Latvian economy. In the opening speech the president of LEDF Inese Vaidere expressed acknowledgement about the 54 competition entries from 7 Latvian universities and colleges. There was a wide range of the topics represented in the competition starting from various management issues, as well as problems in the state administration mostly concentrating on financial issues and stimulation of economic activities in Latvia. The Prime Minister of Latvia Valdis Dombrovskis, a member of LEDF, gave the annual LEDF lecture on the topic “The European competitiveness and challenges of Latvia”, in which he pointed out that the advantages from the faster economic growth in the European Union need to be maintained and it is important to support a further growth to reach the average level of the EU. The improvement of the competitiveness of Latvia’s economics could be attained by making the tax policy more competitive, and development of science and innovations. Also the Chair of the Senate of the Latvian Academy of Sciences Janis Strazdins, one of the guests of this event, asked our Prime Minister when could Latvia reach Estonia’s or EU’s average level – as for this question Valdis Dombrovskis did not mention a particular year, however, he did point out that the economic growth is a sign that Latvia is getting closer to this goal. The answer to the previous question was the research topic for one of the laureates of the LEDF award – Edvins Ripa, now a graduate of the Faculty of Economics and Management, University of Latvia who entered the competition with his Bachelor thesis “Latvia’s real and nominal convergence to the average EU level” (supervisor: Irina Skribane) and received one of the 1^st places. The paper was described as innovative by the jury members, and by far extends the requirements of Bachelor’s Thesis. It was concluded in this paper that by maintaining the current rates of economic development, the average level of EU gross domestic product could be reached in 30 years This year LEDF awarded two 1^st places and also the graduate of the Faculty of Economics and Management, University of Latvia Simona Strizevska received 1^st place with her Master Thesis “Evaluation of Business Cycle Synchronization in the Context of Development of Latvia’s economics” (supervisor: Edgars Brekis). This paper was acknowledged by the jury as a scientifically high quality work, in which the author mathematically proves that the economic cycles in Latvia and in the world strongly correlate, and that the business cycles in Latvia lag by approximately one or two quarters. The conclusions were found to be useful in the short term activities of the state administration and the author has proposed to the Ministry of Finance to introduce a monitoring system of Latvian business cycles, thus preventing previously known setbacks to the economic development. LEDF consolation prize was also awarded to the student of Faculty of Economics and Management, University of Latvia Krista Petersone about her Bachelor Thesis „The analysis of international competitiveness of bio-pharmacy industry in Latvia”. The laureates of the first three places on the competition received money-prizes and the invitations from the president of LEDF Inese Vaidere to the European Parliament in Brussels. The invitations to Brussels were also received by the supervisors of the papers. The long-standing partner of the competition The Council of Higher Education awarded its prize for the scientific research “Living in Latvia” (supervisor Mihails Hazans), which was specially made for the entry to the competition. The paper was made by an international group of students - Raimonds Kokarevics (Latvia), Javier Mendoza Jimenez (Spain), Nena Markovic (Bosnia and Herzegovina) about the expenditure habits of the foreign students in Latvia and the possibilities of Latvian companies in developing special offers to foreign students. The special prizes of EcoBaltia were awarded to the students of Faculty of Economics and Management, University of Latvia - Lota Barkane-Kovalenko with her paper „Evaluation of waste management and recycling industry” and Kristīne Rudnicka with her paper „The introduction of deposit system in Latvia” (supervisor Martins Danusevics)