Academic Centre
On October 27, 2022 to mark the launch of the Technical Support Instrument programme and to ascertain Latvia’s needs and objectives the CompNet visited Riga to meet with Productivity Board of Latvia and Productivity Research Institute “University of Latvia Think tank LV PEAK”. Representatives of European Commission, Latvia’s Central Statistical Bureau, Ministry of Economics of Republic of Latvia, Ministry of Finance of Republic of Latvia and representatives of Bank of Latvia also participated in the meeting.
The meeting was opened by Prof. Gundars Berziņš, Chair of the Productivity Board of Latvia and Dean of the University of Latvia Faculty of Business, Management and Economics, Prof. Inna Šteinbuka, Director of the University of Latvia Think tank LV PEAK, and Stratis Kastrissianakis and Elodie Boulch, Sustainable Growth and Business Environment Unit, Directorate-General for Structural Reform Support (DG REFORM), European Commission, followed by several CompNet presentations. Furthermore, research presentations regarding the use of firm-level micro data in Latvia were given by Dr. Oļegs Tkačevs, Chief Researcher of the Research Division, Monetary Policy Department, Bank of Latvia, and Dr. Oļegs Krasnopjorovs, Deputy Director of the University of Latvia Think tank LV PEAK.
Productivity Board of Latvia and University of Latvia Think tank LV PEAK have been granted the Technical Support Instrument programme by European Commission. The main objective of the Programme is to provide EU National Productivity Boards with the tools to improve their ability to design policy reforms and support Member States in evaluating the best policy choices to implement the reforms agreed as part of their Recovery and Resilience Plans. The project will provide National Productivity Boards and other economic national institutions with harmonized data (micro-aggregated and cross-country comparable) to conduct policy analysis and produce policy recommendations. This project will also provide the necessary training to ensure the National Productivity Boards and other economic national institutions can fully exploit the potential of the micro-based data infrastructure.
The Programme will be implemented by CompNet – The Competitiveness Research Network wich provides a forum for high level research and policy analysis in the areas of competitiveness and productivity. Its main activities include the regular updating of its micro-based competitiveness dataset for European countries, unprecedented in terms of coverage and cross-country comparability. The CompNet will function as an intermediary between EU National Productivity Boards and their corresponding National Statistical Institutes. It will assist the latter to generate appropriately harmonized datasets related to productivity and its drivers based on firm level information as granular as possible given national data availability.
The Programme will assist 6 EU Member States: Germany, France, Portugal, Slovenia, Latvia, and Slovakia.
