On 12 October 2011 the Bank of Latvia hosted its annual conference on economic development. This year it was entitled "Global Challenges and Local Opportunities: Achievements and Prospects in the Baltic States".

Ilmārs Rimšēvičs, Governor of the Bank of Latvia, opened the conference with his introductory statement.

In the context of finding solutions to the euro area debt crisis the presentation "Economic Adjustment in a Monetary Union" by Dr. oec. Jürgen Stark, a Member of the Executive Board and the Governing Council of the European Central Bank, definitely was most interesting for the conference participants (both those present at the conference and watching it on-line). Jürgen Stark is a well-known European economist, one of the architects of the European single currency.

As usual, the conference further proceeded in two parts, providing viewpoints and a discussion by international experts and domestic market players.

Part I "Economic developments in Europe and their implications for the Baltic States: academic and policy perspective" was dedicated to the analysis of the introduction of the euro – the recently implemented changeover to the single EU currency in Estonia and the prospective one in Latvia. Märten Ross, Advisor to the Bank of Finland, was one of the panellists. From 2000 until 2011 he was Vice President of the Bank of Estonia, thus contributing to the euro changeover process. On the basis of his experience he presented his opinion on how Estonia achieved its macroeconomic stability and even strengthened it under the global financial and European debt crises.

In Part II "Latvia's exports: potential, challenges and future prospects" the presentations by representatives of a company, an industrial association, a bank and a public institution promoting exports enabled us to judge about the long-term sustainability of the pronounced export growth achieved to date, to identify the weak links in the chain and discuss practical activities to be undertaken to improve corporate competitiveness.