Riga - Sweden is ready to send a substantial sum of money across the Baltic Sea to prop up the ailing Latvian economy, according to media reports in Latvia Monday.

Latvian current affairs TV program "Nothing Personal" claimed Sunday night that the first economic aid payments could arrive by the end of this week, and the Latvian press contained similar reports on Monday.

The TV show said Latvia will receive around three billion euros from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), with which the Latvian government is attempting to negotiate an economic assistance package.

Riga - The Latvian government and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) discussed devaluation of the national currency, the lat, during negotiations on an economic assistance package, finance minister Atis Slakteris told an extraordinary session of the Latvian parliament Thursday.

But while the option had been considered during the still ongoing negotiations, devaluation had been dismissed as a viable method of tackling the economic crisis in the Baltic state, he said.

Riga - Senior officials from the three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania welcomed NATO plans to bring Georgia and Ukraine into the military alliance without a special "fast- track" scheme Wednesday.

Georgia and Ukraine had hoped to secure Membership Action Plans (MAPs), which would be the next step in achieving full membership, but NATO decided at a meeting in Brussels on Tuesday not to grant MAPs until further reforms had been completed.

As recently as November 27, the Lithuanian parliament adopted a resolution calling on NATO to give MAPs to Ukraine and Georgia.

Riga - Account holders with Latvia's troubled Parex Banka, which is undergoing an emergency nationalization process, had the amount of money they could withdraw capped Tuesday following a decision by the Baltic country's financial regulator.

Under the new restrictions announced by the Financial and Capital Markets Commission (FKTK), individual savers and small companies will be able to withdraw up to
62,000 dollars per month, while large companies will have access to a maximum of 620,000 dollars.

Riga - The Latvian government, currently wrestling with a domestic economic crisis, probably isn't on many voters' Christmas card lists this year - which is just as well as the government banned itself from sending Christmas cards Tuesday.

As part of an austerity package designed to cut public spending, only electronic yuletide and New Year greetings will be sent from state institutions, unless departments obtain special permission to send a traditional card.

Civil servants hoping to enjoy a kiss with colleagues under the Christmas mistletoe are in for disappointment too, as the government has also banned spending on official office parties.

Riga - Traders were glad to see the back of a worrying week on the three Baltic stock exchanges Friday with the Baltic Benchmark Index (BBI), combining data from the Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius exchanges, closing down 2.31 per cent on the day at 228.82.

The BBI managed to drop by more than 10 per cent during the week as the small Baltic bourses joined the larger financial centres in anticipating a major global recession.

On Friday, the NASDAQ OMX Tallinn exchange in Estonia fell 2.15 per cent, the Vilnius exchange in Lithuania rose 0.98 per cent and the Riga exchange in Latvia recorded a 1.07 per cent gain.