Language

Official language
Latvian 86%

T-index
4.4%

T-Index ranks countries according to their potential for online sales.

Other languages
Minority languages: Low German, Upper Sorbian, Lower Sorbian, Frisian, Romani, Danish

Immigrant languages: Turkish, Polish, Balkan, Kurdish, Russian

English
High proficiency (EF) – 26 out of 112 countries/regions in the world- 22/35 position in Europe.

Demography

Capital: Riga
Currency: Euro
Population: 1.88 million 
Population density: 31 /km2

Economy

GDP: 38.87 billion USD (2021)
GDP per capita: 20,642.2 billion USD ‎(2021) ‎
Exports: 16.1 billion USD (2020)

Statistics

Internet users: 92% penetration, 1.71 million
Unemployment rate: 7.5% (2021)
Urbanisation: 68.22% (2019)
Literacy: 99.9% (2018)

Conventions

Numbering system
Arabic numerals and comma as decimal separator

Date format: dd-mm-yyyy
Time: 24h time system
Country code: 00371

Economy

Imports
$19.3 billion (2020).   Refined Petroleum ($1.78B), Broadcasting Equipment ($747M), Packaged Medicaments ($640M), Hard Liquor ($487M), and Cars ($455M), importing mostly from Lithuania ($2.95B), Russia ($2.82B), Germany ($1.68B), Poland ($1.65B), and Estonia ($1.37B).

Financial inclusion factors (over 15 years of  age)
• 93% have an account with a financial institution
• 17% have a credit card
• 61% make online purchases

Ease of doing business
It is very easy to conduct business (rated 80.3 out of 100) ranked 11th out of 24 countries in Europe ranked 19th out of 190 countries worldwide (2022, World Bank)

Exports
$16.1 billion (2020).  Broadcasting Equipment ($794M), Sawn Wood ($787M), Wheat ($695M), Fuel Wood ($557M), and Packaged Medicaments ($488M), exporting mostly to Lithuania ($2.47B), Estonia ($1.59B), Russia ($1.26B), Germany ($1.1B), and United Kingdom ($892M).

Main local online stores
ss.lv, 1a.lv and amazon.de, ebay.co.uk, amazon.co.uk and amazon.com

Economic freedom
‘Mostly free’ (74.8 out of 100) ranked 13th out of 45 European countries ranked 18th out of 186 countries worldwide (2022, Heritage Foundation and Wall Street Journal)

Global Innovation Index
Ranked 25th out of 39 European countries, 38th out of 132 worldwide.

The Global Innovation Index captures the innovation
ecosystem performance of 132 economies and tracks the most recent global innovation trends.

Media

Media language Latvian, Russian

Information channels
The media reflect the linguistic and cultural split between Latvian and Russian speakers. TV is the leading medium and the sector is dominated by top commercial station TV3, two public networks and the Baltic variants of Russian networks. TV3’s owner, Sweden’s MTG, is a major player in the broadcasting sector. Russian-language media is dominated by pro-Kremlin, Russia-made content. In response, Latvia has given closer official scrutiny to media policy and in 2016 temporarily banned a Russian TV network for “inciting hatred”. Public Latvian Radio (LR) dominates the radio market, thanks partly to the popularity of music station Radio 2. Public radio and TV are financed by state subsidies and advertising. The BBC World Service in English is relayed in Riga on 100.5 FM. Newspapers – all of them privately-owned – reflect a variety of political views. Many titles have suffered declining circulations. By late 2015, more than 1.6 million Latvians were online (Internetworldstats). Latvian social network Draugiem.lv rivals Facebook in popularity. Inbox.lv portal, offering email, dating and photo services, is one of the most-visited sites.

The press

Diena – daily
Neatkariga Rita Avize (NRA) – daily
Dienas Bizness – business daily
Latvijas Avize – daily
Vesti Segodnya – daily, in Russian
MK-Latvia – weekly, in Russian

Television

Latvian Television (LTV) – public, operates LTV1 and LTV7
TV3 – commercial
LNT – commercial
TV6 – commercial
PBK – Riga-based, pan-Baltic TV in Russian

Radio

Latvian Radio – public; six networks
Radio Skonto – commercial
Radio SWH – commercial
Star FM – commercial

News agency

LETA – English-language pages
BNS (Baltic News Service)
Delfi – news portal, in Latvian and Russian
TVNET – news portal, in Latvian and Russian

Internet Data

Internet users
92% penetration, 1.71 million

Share of web traffic by device
38.80% mobile phones, 59.69% computers (laptops and desktops), 1.48% tablet devices, others 0.02%

Median speed of mobile Internet connection
29.92 mbps

Median speed of fixed Internet connection
62.44 mbps

Mobile connection as a percentage of total population: 141.4%

Percentage of mobile connections that are broadband (3G-5G): 90.5%

Most popular web search engines
Google (96.13%), Yandex Ru(1.43%), Bing (1.21%), Yahoo (0.62%), Duckduckgo (0.37%), Mail.ru (0.14%) 

Most used social media
Facebook (65.19%), Pinterest (12), Twitter(11.33%),  Instagram (7.23%), YouTube (2.71%), Tumblr (0.59%)

Social statistics

Life expectancy
75.32 yrs (2017)

Average age of the population
43.9  yrs (2020) 

Healthcare expenditure
6.3% of GDP (2019)