The contract was signed by Mr. Andris Ozols, Director of the Investment and Development Agency of Latvia, Mr. Vladimirs Čamāns, Chairman of the Board, and Mr. Armands Sviķis, Member of the Board, "BAU-HOW Baltic" Ltd, Mr. Aivars Lembergs, Chairman of Ventspils City Council and Mr. Imants Sarmulis, CEO of Free Port of Ventspils.

During the official event of signing the contract, the members of the signatory parties were also given an immediate opportunity to watch the innovative manufacturing cycle at the factory.

„BAU-HOW Baltic” Ltd is a subsidiary company of the Norway-based Group „BAU-HOW”. The „BAU-HOW” group have developed a flexible, patented and cost-effective concept of manufacturing building modules, together with a relevant production system. The industrialized manufacturing technologies have been developed so that they make it possible to construct cost-effective multi-storey buildings in compliance with the most sophisticated technological standards and in a remarkably shorter period for construction. The modular systems developed by BAU-HOW offer freedom in selecting the design of the building, as it is only the construction process which is standardized, not the structures of the modules on offer.

„BAU-HOW Baltic” Ltd was founded in 2007 with an aim to launch the implementation of the new building system and promote its further development. The company performs industrial manufacturing of multi-storey residential buildings and the relevant designing, manufacturing, logistics and assembly operations.

So far, the company has had a successful beginning of its operation at the factory on lease at 27 Rūpniecības Str., Ventspils. At present, the company has a number of large orders on supplying modules for multi-storey residential buildings and hotel modules to Norway and Denmark, which fully meets the current capacity of the factory. In addition to this, there is ongoing work with the next prospective projects to ensure a non-stop manufacturing process.

Today the company already employs 70 workers, and it expects to increase the staff to approx.120 workers within the next few months.

By anticipating a future market development and following the strategy of the BAU-HOW Group, the company is planning to begin the construction of a new factory during 2010, in which launching of a full-fledged production process will be scheduled for the end of 2011.

Building of the new factory has been supported by co-financing from the EU Structural Funds within the framework of the activity “High Added Value Investments”. The investment for the new factory is planned to be EUR 14 million, EUR 4.2 million of which will be covered by co-financing from the EU Structural Funds. To absorb this appropriation, two public procurement tenders on construction work and design and delivery of equipment were organized. The fact that the winners in both the tenders were local companies serves as a good evidence of the high level of competiteveness of Latvian companies.

The area of the new factory is expected to be 17 000 m2, and there the modules will be manufactured by the production line principle. In the new factory, „BAU-HOW Baltic” Ltd is planning to employ up to 205 workers, most of whom will be trained at the currently existing factory. The whole output of the new factory – 100% – will be exported.

One of the key prerequisites for selecting Ventspils as a location for the factory and launching the above investment projects has been the highly successful collaboration between „BAU-HOW Baltic” Ltd and Ventspils City Council and Free Port of Ventspils, the latter having undertaken to build access roads and the relevant infrastructure in the territory of the future factory, as well as to continue maintaining a favourable business environment at large.