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He said Latvia's economic structure had to be changed in the long term while regaining trust of foreign investors which had significantly dwindled in the last two years was an objective to be attained in the short term.

"Seeing the current share of manufacturing in GDP (12.2%), it is impossible to raise it to 20% in three years. The problem of our manufacturers is low competitiveness, namely, productivity," the economic minister said.

At present the productivity in the Latvian manufacturing industry in current prices is at 35% of the EU level. "Huge efforts will have to be made not only by the companies but also by the public administration to make Latvian manufacturing competitive on the global scale, and then we could start speaking about adequate share of manufacturing in GDP," Aseradens said.

When asked whether that meant that the National Development Plan had to be revised, the minister answered that Latvia had to admit that the 20% target was unrealistic and adjust the plan accordingly.

"We have to replace it with a different target – an increase in manufacturing productivity. The government's objective to achieve a faster economic growth (5%) cannot be fulfilled without increasing productivity. Overall productivity in Latvia is at 41-42% of the EU average, and in the last eight years our country has not made progress in improving productivity. If we failed to find a way to change the economic structure, to switch to products and services with higher value added, to improve efficiency in production and the public administration, meeting the government’'s targets will be difficult," the economics minister said.