On 26 September 2025, the Latvia-Germany Business Forum was held in the German city of Rostock. It was the largest Latvian business delegation abroad to date. More than 170 representatives from over 100 companies and institutions. The forum was opened by the Prime Minister of Latvia, Evika Siliņa. On our side were the association’s chairman and a secretariat intern.

We were not chasing the big deals

The forum had big names in the room. A memorandum on a Rheinmetall munitions factory. Deals with Lufthansa. Those are important news for the country, but they were not our news.

We were looking at something quieter and less visible. Bandages, implant materials and surgical fabrics. Medical textile.

What is medical textile, anyway

Many people do not even know it exists. But it is all around us in hospitals. Bandages and compresses. Surgical thread materials that dissolve inside the body. Artificial blood vessel grafts and implant meshes. Masks, gowns and sterile drapes. Filters for machines that clean blood. All of this is textile, only the kind where a mistake can cost a life.

That is exactly why this field is so different from ordinary clothing. Here nobody buys the cheapest. People buy the safest, the cleanest and the most precise.

Why Germany

Germany is Europe’s medical textile leader. Its market exceeds 2 billion euros, and the country accounts for around a tenth of the entire world medical textile market.

The reasons are strong. Germany has a large and well-funded health system. The population is ageing, and the number of operations and prosthetics keeps growing. And Germany’s strict standards mean that quality is recognised and paid for. That is exactly the kind of market we need.

Why it fits Latvia specifically

Medical textile is almost made for a small country with skilled hands. We cannot and do not want to compete with cheap mass production, where the winner is the one who pays the least. But complex, certified, precise products in small batches we can do.

This is exactly where quality matters more than price, and quality is Latvia’s strength. That is why we believe medical textile is one of the clearest directions for Latvia’s industry in the coming years.

Honest: what it will take

This road is not easy, and we do not promise it as easy. In medical textile, everything rests on certifications and strict norms. To sell a bandage or an implant material in Germany, you have to pass a demanding compliance check that costs time and money.

That means we have to learn together, invest in standards and find partners who already know this road. For a single company it is often too much. For the industry working together it is doable.

Also about Ukraine

The forum was not only about money. Support for Ukraine was also discussed, especially for the Chernihiv region. This matters to us.

Textile can make a very practical contribution. From protective clothing and medical materials to fabrics needed for reconstruction. Cooperation is not only about profit. It is also about responsibility, and we take that seriously.

This direction is big, but the start is now

If your company works with technical or medical textile materials, or wants to enter that field, no single company conquers such a market alone. Write to us, and let’s start this road together.