Toru Nagatsuka, 66, who stayed on in Latvia after resigning as Japan's acting ambassador in 2005, is working for an investment development public corporation to help the Baltic state following its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.
The small country on the Baltic Sea with a population of about 2.3 million has seen frequent changes of administration. At the end of last year, Prime Minister Aigars Kalvitis resigned after a huge number of people demonstrated in front of the cathedral in Riga to protest his alleged rigging of elections.
An economic policy that puts priority on growth is triggering inflationary pressure, widening the income gap between rich and poor. According to Katsuhiko Kubo, who was Japan's acting ambassador in Latvia until March, the country bears a striking resemblance to Japan immediately after the Meiji Restoration in 1868.