Latvia’s investments heading downhill

RIGA - Latvia’s residents believe that ice hockey, health care, also bobsleigh, skeleton and luge are the main areas where financial, human, material and technical resources are worth investing, because this is where Latvia has the best chance of attaining noteworthy results internationally, according to a public opinion survey carried out by SKDS, reports Nozare.lv. Respondents were offered to give no more than five replies in three areas - sports, education and science, culture.
Ice hockey was the favorite with 67.1 percent of respondents ticking off this box. 52.2 percent mentioned health care, and 49.9 percent bobsleigh, skeleton and luge. The closest contenders that are considered to have major potential and therefore should have greater support are theater (43.9 percent) and classical music (40.4 percent).

Residents also consider engineering sciences, basketball, chemistry, computer science and physics to have great potential.
Most respondents believe that Latvia should support those areas where outstanding results have already been achieved, that already have developed infrastructure and organizations, and not start something from scratch, said SKDS head Arnis Kaktins.

Regarding sports, respondents said that, besides ice hockey, bobsleigh, skeleton and luge, also supported should be BMX (21 percent), athletics and running (21.4 percent), motor sports (21.4 percent); in education and science - pharmacy (29.9 percent), biology (25 percent); and in culture - painting (29.3 percent), ethno music (28.8 percent), movie making (28.6 percent), photography (24.2 percent) and applied arts (21.3 percent).

Much less support was expressed for football, biathlon, weight-lifting, language training, psychology, sociology, communication sciences, law, popular music, literature.

The poll was carried out on Latvijas Mobilais telefons (LMT) initiative. LMT plans to offer scholarships and professional support for talented young people within its ‘O!Kartes Talantu programma’ competition that will be running from April 28 until the end of the year. The total budget is 30,000 lats (42,800 euros), which will be distributed among ten to twenty finalists.