DOWNWARDS STILL MORE.

Our main street Brivibas Iela is now about 10% empty shops. Considering the number of banks and untouchable shops like supermarkets that is a lot.

But there is still difficulty persuading some client companies to cut costs. One thing is that the closeness of the society means many people are working with friends. This creates a strong customer loyalty and people do not want to change suppliers. I can understand this but it does not help

The newspapers have also led with the fact that 13000 more are becoming unemployed each month. One friend of mine on hearing this said, ''yes but they are all losers!'' This is a very stark comment but something I have heard before from even highly educated Latvians. I am often surprised at the apparent lack of softness and compassion here. I think it is some sort of historic self preservation system. Luckily for these ''losers'' summer is coming and at least they will not freeze in the coming months if they are homeless. lets hope the crisis settles soon.

One of my new clients is in publishing. They have really good titles but advertising is slipping fast. It is hard to see how cash flow can be improved in the short term and at best they have two months buffer. This will be challenging indeed for both them and us.