Dear CanCham Members and Friends,

Happy summer! Hopefully you are enjoying the relative freedom of reduced restrictions. Both Canada and Latvia are enjoying reduced COVID-9 infection levels, but concerns are that we may be in for more of the same that we had last fall this coming autumn. We can only wait and see.

Just for interest on vaccination levels:

Canada, 1 dose – 70.2%, fully vaccinated – 54.3%
Latvia, 1 dose – 39.6%, fully vaccinated – 35.2%,

The data shows infections among fully vaccinated Canadians represent just 0.5 per cent of the COVID-19 cases reported since the country's vaccine rollout started in December. See article here.

Upcoming events

Wednesday, July 28th, 2021 18.30 CanCham's member Zoom meeting. Discussion of future plans with members and DMC’s. Register here.
September 3rd, 2021 Commercial visit with the Embassy to Cesis being planned.
Monday, October 4th at 18.30 – Annual General Meeting (AGM). We will be electing 5 Board members. Nominations and/or volunteers of candidates are being accepted.
Monday, October 11th, 2020 at 18.30 – Canadian Thanksgiving Dinner

“Show & Tell” presentations events will be scheduled in the fall, starting with the Trade Facilitation & Export Group.

Current activity

We plan to use a project approach to CanCham activities. Active projects include:

the Trade Facilitation & Export project. The objective is to promote our member services in order to develop strategic partnerships between our members and Canadian companies, and are collaborating with the Latvian Investment & Development Agency, and both the Canadian and Latvian Embassies.
the Medical Tourism project. A work group for this is being set up.

Members who wish to participate in any of these projects are asked to let contact the respective group leaders or a board member.

Past events

The Report on Canada’s 154th birthday with the CanCham in Latvia can be viewed here.
The Report on CanCham Talks - “How to raise your immune system and mental well-being during the pandemic” can be viewed here. The video can be viewed here.
The Report on CanCham’s Trade Facilitation & Export group’s CanCham Talks evening titled “Canada-Latvia Trade – what you need to know” on May 12th, 2021 can be viewed here. The video can be viewed here.

New Members

We welcome the following as a new member that has joined the CanCham since the last update:

26.03.2021 B&B Buildings joins the CanCham as a Business member. http://www.bbbuildings.eu/

DMC System

Please be reminded that the DMC system for business development between Latvia and Canada is available to all members who wish to export goods or services or receive same from Canada. This is explained in http://cancham.lv/dmc/how-dmc-works (updated). Companies interested in exporting and developing strategic partnerships should take note. If help is required, please let us know.

“Show & Tell” presentation evenings

This program has currently been suspended because of the current State of Emergency declared by the Government because of the COVID-19 situation, but will continue as soon as the situation improves. In the meantime, we are helping our members develop effective presentations.

We continued to develop the “Show & Tell” meeting concept for the individual groups. The main developments included:

the use of the PechaKucha style format for the presentations - 15 slides @ 20 seconds each, see https://www.pechakucha.com/about and https://www.pechakucha.com/.
the realization that we wish these to be in-person meetings for those in Latvia

These events allow members and those interested in presenting to the CanCham to provide their presentation to both members and those interested in the particular subject area.

Canadian companies will be invited and encouraged to present themselves via ZOOM as part of the program.

Special Recognition

We wish to recognize those members who advance CanCham’s objectives by having signed up at enhanced membership levels:

Corporate Contributing Members: Exupery International School, Savoie Laporte
Senior Corporate Members: Singh's Restaurant, Indian Raja Restaurant, Energolukss

Other information

Par CanCham latviešu valodā – a presentation describing the CanCham in the Latvian language has been prepared by br.ook interior architecture. We thank Ligita Breģe and Baiba Rūķe for putting this together.

Corporate

Contributing

Members