A Hong Kong-based company has acquired the well-known Drogas chain of health and beauty stores in Latvia and Lithuania, and a company official said the new owner plans to grow the brand regionally.

A.S. Watson, the retail and manufacturing division of conglomerate Hutchison Whampoa Ltd. of Hong Kong, said June 4 that it has acquired the 59 Drogas stores in Latvia and 24 more in Lithuania.

Drogas, established in 1993, controls 30 percent of Latvia’s health and beauty market, A.S. Watson said in a press release. Drogas expanded to Lithuania in 2001 and has plans to open three more stores there this month.

“This is an important milestone for Drogas as well as the country, being one of the first major foreign investments since Latvia and Lithuania joined the (European Union),” Andrejs Jernevs, general manager of Drogas, said in a prepared statement.

Ian Wade, managing director of A.S. Watson, said Latvia and Lithuania are a springboard to the Baltic, the Nordic market and the CIS. “The region’s recent accession to the EU gives it a new powerful impulse to the creation of a free, secure and prosperous economy. We see great potential in the markets,” Wade said in prepared comments.

Terms of the acquisition were not announced.

A.S. Watson operates 13 retail brands with nearly 3,700 stores. The company employs 64,000 people. Last year, it reported turnover of more than USD 8 billion.

The degree of economic development last year in Latvia was the lowest of the 25 member and candidate countries of the European Union and the European Free Trade Assocation, according to figures released June 3 by the EU’s Eurostat service. Luxembourg scored the highest.

In its analysis, the Eurostat survey found that Latvia’s per capita gross domestic product was just 42 percent of the average in the 25 EU member and candidate countries. Estonia’s per capita GDP was 48 percent of the average, while Lithuania was at 46 percent of the average.

The numbers don’t speak to the actual income of households in the countries, Eurostat said in a press release.

Luxembourg topped all nations by recording a per capita GDP that was 208 percent of the average. But Eurostat noted that Luxembourg’s figure “tends to be overestimated, due to the large share of cross-border workers in total employment.” While those workers add to the GDP of the country, they are not considered in the calculation that leads to the per capita GDP. In others words, Luxembourg’s figure most likely is lower than reported.

The three Baltic states and seven other countries officially became members of the EU on in May, expanding the organization from 15 to 25 nations.

Although Latvia’s per capita GDP was low, it was not the lowest in the Eurostat survey, which also included three other countries being considered for EU membership. Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey all scored lower, with Turkey recording a per capita GDP just 27 percent of the EU average.

The Eurostat service is based in Luxembourg.

Legislation that would forbid persons with dual citizenship from holding high Latvian government posts has been sent for review by four parliamentary committees.

On a 61-29 vote, the Saeima on June 2 sent Bill 832 (titled “Par ierobežojumiem personām ar dubulto pilsonību ieņemt augstākos valsts amatus”) to the Legal Affairs Committee, the Foreign Affairs Committee, the Human Rights and Public Affairs Committee, and the Public Administration and Local Government Committee, according to the parliament’s Web site.

The proposed law offers 23 categories of high government posts in which dual citizens could not serve, including such posts as the president, members of parliament, the prime minister and other ministers, the president’s chief of staff, the head of the Bank of Latvia and members of its board of directors, the director of the state anti-corruption bureau, members of the National Radio and Television Council and Latvia’s ambassadors. Under the Latvian constitution, only the president is not allowed to be a dual citizen. Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga had to renounce her Canadian citizenship in order to become president in 1999.

The bill does not prohibit dual citizens from being candidates for high government positions, but stipulates that if elected or appointed to such a position, he or she would have one month to renounce their non-Latvian citizenship.

After the renewal of independence in 1991, Latvia until 1995 allowed persons to reclaim citizenship based on pre-World War II documentation. As a result, thousands of Latvian exiles and their descendents became dual citizens, including many who had not been born in Latvia.

If approved, the law would go into effect July 1, 2005. Approval of the bill could affect several current officials, according to the LETA news agency, including Latvian and U.S. citizen Nils Muižnieks, who is minister for special assignments for society integration affairs; members of parliament Arturs Krišjānis Kariņš and Uldis Mārtiņš Klauss, both of the Jaunais laiks (New Era) party and both holding Latvian and U.S. citizenship; MP Liene Liepiņa of Jaunais laiks, who holds Latvian and German citizenship; and Jānis Kažociņš, head of the Constitutional Defense Bureau, who holds Latvian and British citizenship.

The legislation was proposed May 28 by members of Tautas partija (People’s Party). Members of Jaunais laiks, led by former Prime Minister Einars Repše, have suggested the proposed legislation is an effort by Tautas partija to replace Kažociņš as head of the Constitutional Defense Bureau or to throw a wrench in the effort to have Kariņš become prime minister.

To become law, the legislation would need to be approved through three readings in parliament and be promulgated by the president.