A-Selver, a subsidiary of Estonia's Tallinn Trade House, a blue chip company, announced it would open some 15 stores in Latvia by 2009. Riga and Liepaja will each receive three outlets. Ten of the outlets will be located on plots that Tallinn Trade House bought from Germany's Lidl, which had planned to enter the Baltic market but later backed off. A-Selver, which prefers selling domestically made foodstuffs in its stores, wants to become the third or fourth largest retail chain in Latvia. There are currently 21 A-Selver stores in Estonia.
The Estonian creators of Skype announced they have invested in a U.S.-based company that produces educational material for Chinese. Ambient Sound Investment, an investment firm set up by the Skype creators, said they invested in Idapted.com, a Web-based tutoring program aimed at Chinese customers who want to improve their conversational skills, the Baltic News Service reported. Idapted.com is a U.S.-Chinese joint venture. Ambient Sound Investment, set up in 2003, is owned by the four Estonian creators of Skype.
Cargo handling at Klaipeda increased 8 percent last year to 23.5 million tons, an all-time high. Growth was recorded in bulk fertilizers (up 29.3 percent), ro-ro (29.1 percent) and oil products (17.1 percent). The Klaipeda port is the fourth busiest in the Baltics after Tallinn, Ventspils and Riga.
