Direct Speech, EU – Baltic States, Forum, Investments, Latvia, Legislation, Markets and Companies

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Ladies and gentlemen,

Dear FICIL members,

I am very pleased to welcome you once again to discuss Latvia’s economic development and progress since our last meeting.

The first half of this year was a real test for me, ministers and the whole civil service in handling EU-level agenda.

We have learned a lot.  And my goal is to use this experience to accelerate structural reforms, as well as continue an active engagement in the EU decision making.     

Speeding up comprehensive structural reforms is essential for attracting new foreign investments. It is in our own interests to achieve convergence with the EU and OECD living standards as fast as possible.

I will work closely with my ministers to address key issues investors have been raising.  I will be meeting ministers regularly one-on-one, as well as part of dedicated working groups, to see how we can move forward faster and take the needed decisions.   

To make smart decisions we need a dynamic and professional civil service. I am therefore pleased that Mr Mārtiņš Krieviņš has recently become the new head of State Chancellery. He has great ideas on how to make our civil service more focused on substance and clear results.

Ladies and gentlemen,

We are finalising the 2016 budget. I am pleased that all political parties agreed to advance an increase of defence financing from 1 to 1.4 percent of GDP and we will reach 2 % by 2018.

I hope we will proceed with the same determination to find additional financing for health, education, science and other under-funded sectors in coming years, and as I talked to your Chairman, at the moment school reform is high on our agenda.

We will also have to review the effectiveness of our instruments in tackling shadow economy and economic crimes. It is simply unacceptable that many businesses avoid their obligations, thus hurting fair competition and public services. For example, construction regularly features among the grey economy high-risk sectors, while at the same time benefitting from the EU funded public procurements.         

On healthcare, we will need to work hard in making structural reforms in this field. We will be gradually moving towards mandatory social insurance.

Energy issues and issues of economy will be covered by the Economics minister.

As regards judicial sector, we need to continue to find ways to speed-up court proceedings, improve the insolvency framework and raise the skills of prosecutors and judges, in particular on economic and financial crimes.  

Ladies and gentlemen,

Many reforms have been started and should be implemented without delay. There are many ideas on the table that should be discussed and brought forward.

I know that you had a very fruitful day yesterday and I hope we have a lot of exchanges of ideas today.