Financial Services, Latvia, Legislation, Real Estate

Commenting on the future of Latvian Privatization Agency, the minister said that the privatization process in Latvia would be over at the end of 2018. At the same time, there are a few problems that still have to be addressed.

"One of these hot potatoes is the vouchers. Since 1994, a total of 112.4 million vouchers have been issued to residents of Latvia, of which 109.8 million have been utilized by January 1 this year, while 2.5 million have still not been utilized," said Aseradens, adding that the government was hoping to find a solution to bring the "voucher saga" to a close.

In the meantime, there are some functions performed by the Privatization Agency that the government still does not know what to do with. These include management of state assets and operations of Reverta and Hiponia companies. If the government concludes that does not need a structural unit for management of state assets, the future of the Privatization Agency will have to be decided.

As for privatization vouchers that are still out there, Aseradens said that most of these vouchers belonged to a small number of people, and that he would not speculate on what the potential solutions to the problem could be.

There still are people who are buying up vouchers, the minister confirmed.