On Thursday, 25 April, the Saeima unanimously approved in the third reading amendments to the law “On Transfer of State Forest Land to Valmiera City Municipality”, which create new, more favourable long-term conditions for attracting investments in the new Valmiera Industrial Park of national importance.
The conditions of the project “Valmiera Industrial Park Development” require the tenant to make non-financial investments of at least EUR 100 million in the areas of Phase 1 of the Industrial Park. It should be noted that, in line with internationally accepted practice, an investor assesses a number of relevant factors when deciding whether to invest in a country, region or smaller administrative unit. One of these is the possibility of obtaining long-term guarantees on the totality of the direct investment made in a given parcel of land. In order to encourage potential investors to consider making large-scale non-financial investments in the Valmiera Industrial Park, the law has been amended to take into account the principle that the larger the investment, the longer the payback period.
The amendments to the law provide that the term of the lease or development right of the Valmiera Industrial Park may be determined:
1) up to 45 years, if the amount of investments planned by the lease or development right holder and invested during the planned term exceeds EUR 30 million;
2) up to 60 years, if the amount of the investment planned and to be invested by the leaseholder or the right to develop exceeds EUR 70 million;
3) up to 70 years, if the amount of the investment planned and within the planned term of the lease or development right exceeds EUR 100 million.
The amendments have yet to be promulgated by the President of Latvia and will enter into force on the day following their publication in the Official Gazette.
The previous legal framework provided for general lease periods of up to 30 years for public property.
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In 2017, the territory designated for the establishment of the Valmiera Industrial Park was transferred to the municipality by the Law “On the Transfer of State Forest Land to the Municipality of Valmiera” for the establishment of industrial public infrastructure to promote the production and development of innovative products, facilitate the activities of start-up companies, and diversify the regional economy.
In January 2024, Valmiera Municipality signed an agreement with the Central Finance and Contracting Agency on the mobilisation of the Recovery and Resilience Mechanism financing of EUR 20 million for the implementation of the first phase of the 57.5 ha “Valmiera Industrial Park Development” project. The implementation of the above-mentioned project involves the development of the public infrastructure of the park (industrial yard for rail transhipment, private use rail network, utility infrastructure, improvement of sites for merchants’ buildings), for which the municipality will announce several lease and development right auctions.
In the development planning documents of Valmiera Municipality, the municipality has defined a strategic goal – wider industrialisation in the period from 2022 to 2038. In order to start implementing this goal and focusing on the creation of the new Valmiera Industrial Park, its technical layout envisages attracting up to five strategic investors (102.54 ha), while creating a cluster approach between potential, regional and municipal entrepreneurs in the area.
https://likumi.lv/ta/id/291861-par-valsts-meza-zemes-nodosanu-valmieras-pilsetas-pasvaldibai