🇱🇻 LATVIA | FOREIGN TRADE I–IX 2025
Baltic Focus – Key Shifts in Wood, Alcohol and Energy
1) Overview (CSP data I–IX 2025)
• Total trade: €31.86bn (+6.1%)
• Exports: €14.12bn (+4.4%)
• Imports: €17.74bn (+7.7%)
• Trade balance: –€1.22bn
Top export partners (47%): LT, EE, DE, UK, SE
Top import partners (58%): LT, DE, PL, EE, FI
📄 Source: CSP report (file uploaded)
🌲 2) Wood & Sawn Timber: Latvia drifts deeper into raw-material exports
• Wood is Latvia’s largest export: €2.26bn (15.5%).
• UK absorbs most sawn timber; Sweden takes significant volumes of roundwood.
• Despite investments into OSB/MDF/CLT, raw logs + basic sawn timber dominate export growth.
Result: Latvia remains a raw-material supplier, not a value-added wood producer.
🍾 3) Alcohol Exports Collapse: the Eastern Corridor shuts down
• Alcohol exports (KN22) fell –7.8%.
• Latvia was for decades a major re-export hub for alcohol into Russia (direct flows, then Caucasus/Central Asia transit).
• 2025 marks a structural break:
– Russia restricts foreign alcohol imports
– transit monitoring tightened in KZ/KG/AM
– EU oversight of KN22 increased
Result: The long-standing “Eastern alcohol corridor” has effectively closed.
⛽️ 4) Fuel & Gas: New energy geography emerges (Finland shows up)
Benzine
• Imports surged to €253.6m (+2.4×).
• 73.7% from Finland → reflects Neste / Porvoo refinery dominance.
Diesel
• €515.3m (–23%); mainly from LT (67.6%).
• USA + Denmark appear with small shares — typical for NATO military fuel deliveries.
Natural Gas (gas state, KN 271121)
• €366.9m (+13.6%)
• 78.8% LT → regasified LNG from Klaipėda
• 21.1% FI → regasified LNG from Inkoo
Result: Latvia now sits inside a two-node LNG system: Klaipėda + Inkoo.
📌 BF Summary
Latvia’s 9-month trade data reveal three major structural shifts:
Wood sector moves deeper into raw-material exports.
Alcohol re-exports to the East collapse after decades.
Energy flows reconfigure around Finland + Lithuania as LNG gateways.
Image: photos/photo_58@21-11-2025_20-21-32.jpg