In the TOP101 of Latvia's most valuable companies, which was presented to the public for the seventeenth time this year by Prudentia in cooperation with Nasdaq Riga, the manufacturing companies of the forestry sector should be particularly highlighted, including both softwood processors and vertically integrated groups of forest management, logging, and processing companies. This year, there are 15 such companies in the Latvian TOP101 list, as opposed to the list of Estonia's most valuable companies, which, under similar market conditions, includes 10 forestry sector companies.

While for hardwood processors, such as AS “Latvijas finieris” (14th place), approximately half of 2021 was not a period of special advantages, softwood processors were able to take full advantage of the unique market situation, where roundwood prices rose, but not as rapidly as prices in product sales markets, with labor and electricity costs still remaining at reasonable levels. It is pleasing that very many companies in the sector, including those not included in the TOP101 list, took advantage of this. Of course, the largest increases were demonstrated by the most experienced and largest companies in the sector. I would especially like to highlight the jump of “Kronospan Riga” from eighth place to fifth place, ranking immediately after the high-tech company SIA “Mikrotīkls”. In turn, such representatives of the woodworking industry as SIA “AKZ”, SIA “Pata”, SIA “Gaujas koks”, and SIA “Kureks” experienced a value jump of over 100% over the year, which allowed them to climb several dozen places up the TOP101 list. It should be noted that within the framework of the TOP101 list of Estonia's most valuable companies, only the TOFTAN group was able to show a comparable level of value growth (95%), which indicates that Latvian companies have, on a mass scale, utilized the market conditions in 2021 much more effectively than their Estonian colleagues.
Pixabay photo used