Company briefs - 2010-03-17

After losing the contracting work commission for the new border guard ship for Estonia to the Finnish company Uudenkaupungin Tyovene, BLRT is considering buying the Finnish shipyard, reports news2biz. “BLRT is considering acquiring the Finnish ship-building enterprise,” confirmed BLRT’s communications director Anu Hallik-Jurgenstein. Referring to confidentiality obligations, she refused to comment on the matter in greater detail. The contract for building the new border guard vessel for Estonia has a monetary value of 440 million kroons (28.2 million euros). BLRT already has one shipyard in Finland, in Turku. BLRT’s turnover in 2009 amounted to 4.8 billion kroons.

Latvia’s largest producer of alcoholic beverages, Latvijas Balzams, isn’t ruling out the possibility of transferring its business to some other country if the situation with contraband worsens, says CEO Karlis Andersons, reports business daily Biznes&Baltija. Andersons calls the situation with alcohol contraband in Latvia “very serious,” as in other countries the proportion of illegal alcohol is 5 percent, 10 percent at the maximum. In Latvia, this market share is 35 pecent. Uncollected VAT and excise tax revenue has reached 50 million lats (71.4 million euros). American Tobacco Latvia shut down its Riga plant due to rampant contraband in cigarettes.

Hungarian low-fare airline Wizz Air started its first flights from Riga on March 13, reports Nozare.lv. The first flights to RIX will arrive from Oslo. “Wizz Air will offer flights from Riga to London, Oslo and the Finnish city of Turku. Wizz Air launched operations in 2004. Since then the airline has been registering 40 to 50 percent increases in passenger turnover annually. “Wizz Air is the biggest low-fare airline in Central and Eastern Europe. The airline celebrated its fifth anniversary last year, and has transported over 22 million passengers during its five years of operations.” The airline’s fleet is made up of 26 new Airbus 320 aircraft.