On April 24 a seminar on policy advice for promoting cross – border cooperation and on  experience of Liepāja City for fostering business and tourism took place.

On April 24 the third seminar out of a series of five seminars took place in Liepaja. The seminar was organized by Kurzeme Planning Region within framework of the project LLI-303 “Clean Brownfields”. On the seminar representatives of local municipalities and regional institutions of Latvia and Lithuania got acquainted with information about ESPON contribution to territorial development, cross-border cooperation, experience of Liepaja City Municipality about transforming of once degraded territories into territories for business, tourism and community friendly living environment.

The seminar was started with the presentation by Ilona Raugze, director of ESPON EGTC. Since its foundation in 2002, the institution which works for European territorial cooperation and development has accumulated great experience. The lecturer invited representatives of local and regional level institutions to be more active at benefitting from ESPON’s offer – to apply for research papers and targetted analysis, make use of ESPON’s research papers and data already accumulated. She highlighted the importance to reveal and understand territorial capital and potential, this way strengthening our territorial cooperation, competitiveness for sustainable and well-balanced development in the context of Europe.

I.Raugze invited to much more active cross – border cooperation for public service regarding it as a driving force and instrument for more efficient resource usage, even if in some cases administrative regulations are in challenge to successful cross-border activities. With reference to degraded and lagging behind areas issue an information on recent ESPON research and analytical examples were provided about inner perripheries phenomenon and the key risks which proceed from existence of such territories on national, regional and local level in Europe.

The seminar was continued by Gunārs Ansiņš, deputy chairman of Liepaja City Municipality regarding development and cooperation issues. His presentation was dedicated to Liepāja Special Economic Zone, its development and contribution to change industrial degraded territories to successful business areas, municipal experience to revitalize Karosta, transforming it from historically military territory to tourism and business environment. G. Ansiņš highlighted the importance of well – balanced infrastructure development – to attract industrial and service companies and at the same time create pleasant environment for Liepāja inhabitants and guests.

The final presentation was run by Gints Reķēns, head of Liepaja Business Incubator of Latvia Investment and Development Agency . He told about tasks of the business incubator, system of support for becoming businessmen, he provided examples of supported projects, including projects resulting in degraded and abandoned territories/ buildings returned to new hospitality service or tourism offer.

The seminar was conluded by a study visit quided by Mārtiņš Ābols, head of Liepaja City Development Department. Seminar participants were taken to two historically degraded territories of Liepaja which are gradually turned into beloved sites for tourism and rest. The first site visited was Zirgu sala – once a city wastes dump, now cleaning and regeneration work is in process, infrastructure for sports, rest and bird watching is already created and will be added in future. On the way being told about several successful transformations in the city seminar participants continued to Karosta where they were guided to watch what has already been completed to clean and put in order the territory, to develop infrastructure, to improve living environment for the inhabitants of Karosta, to promote interest of businesses to settle in Karosta, to attract tourists.