THE NARROW COBBLED streets of the Old Town area of the Latvian capital of Riga are still clogged with luxury cars but an outsider’s first impressions are deceptive. A closer examination of the harsh realities of the downturn in the Latvian economy points to a different picture of life in the Baltic state after GDP shrank by 18% last year.
Car repossessions because of loan defaults outnumbered new purchases in 2009, with repo men the only beneficiaries and former owners, car salesmen and leasing companies the prime victims.
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