Reval Hotels will build a new 230-room hotel in downtown Rīga across from the Vermanes Park, the Estonia-based company has announced.

The company expects to invest LVL 21 million in the project, which will include a restaurant, lobby bar, fitness center, parking space and conference rooms. The project, to be located at Elizabetes Street 71/73, is expected to open in spring 2007, the company said in a press release.

The project will be built by Linstow AS, a Norwegian property development company, and Skonto Būve, a Latvian construction company.

The new hotel will be Reval’s third property in Rīga. The company also runs the 95-room Reval Hotel Rīdzene—one of the city’s priciest properties—and the Reval Hotel Latvija, a property it is expanding to nearly 600 rooms at a cost of EUR 20 million. The expanded Latvija is scheduled for completion in April, in time for the World Ice Hockey Championship scheduled in May.

“We see outstanding potential for development in Rīga and the decision to build a third hotel here is a result of demand and of good economic results so far,” Heikki Vanhanen, Reval Hotels Country manager in Latvia, said in a prepared statement.

When the third Rīga hotel is completed, Reval will have more than 2,000 rooms in the Baltics.

The Reval projects are among several hotel projects recently completed, underway or planned in Rīga. For example, the new 11-story, 246-room Albert Hotel opened early this month at 33 Dzirnavu Street.

Latvia’s new ambassador to the NATO defense alliance, Jānis Eichmanis, began work Jan. 9 in Brussels, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has announced.

Eichmanis replaces Aivis Ronis, who left the post to pursue private matters. Ronis was a former Latvian ambassador to the United States, and Eichmanis served under him as military attaché.

Born in Latvia in 1942, Eichmanis was educated in Canada and the United Kingdom. His most recent appointment was as Latvia’s ambassador to Greece.

Eichmanis is the third Latvian ambassador to the defense alliance. The first was Imants Lieģis, a Latvian born in the United Kingdom.

Rīga will be the site of a NATO summit in November.

Latvia ranks 39th out of 161 countries in terms of its economic freedom, according to a study by the Washington, D.C.-based conservative think tank Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal newspaper.

Seen as “mostly free,” Latvia lost ground in the 2006 Index of Economic Freedom because the cost of government became more expensive and because of its monetary policy, according to the report released Jan. 4. Latvia’s overall score on the index, which looks at 50 different variables, dropped to 2.43, down from 2.31 in the 2005 index.

Estonia, with an index of 1.75, ranked seventh in the world, while Lithuania, with an index of 2.14, ranked 23rd. Hong Kong, Singapore and Ireland took the first three spots in the index.

The 2006 index, the Heritage Foundation said in a press release, measured 161 countries. The 50 variables were divided among 10 broad categories, including trade policy, the fiscal burden of government, government intervention in the economy, monetary policy, capital flows and foreign investment, banking and finance, wages and prices, property rights, regulation, and Informal market activity.

The higher the score in the index, the greater the level of government interference, according to the Heritage Foundation.