According to Raimonds Vējonis, more rapid promotion of entrepreneurship would stimulate overall economic growth by providing wider access to finance for Latvian entrepreneurs, including various financial development instruments and the programmes of the EU Structural Funds.
In terms of the Structural Funds, the President of Latvia stressed that the government should continue to develop all the legislation and regulations required for uptake of the EU more actively, especially in sector of construction, where large decrease in volumes is observed.
The President of Latvia expressed his concern that amount of the shadow economy existing in the country was still huge. According to the latest calculations of researchers, the shadow economy constituted one fifth of gross domestic product. “The fight against the shadow economy should be definitely continued. I am very satisfied that organizations of entrepreneurs and experts have joined the fight against it together with the government. We require follow-up measures to be maintained in the long term so that honest entrepreneurs and overall business environment would not suffer in the result of combating the shadow economy,” said Raimonds Vējonis.
During the meeting, the officials discussed opportunities to achieve faster economic growth and higher budget revenues by facilitating growth of exports and continuing export market diversification and conquering new markets that Latvian entrepreneurs had already successfully commenced. That is particularly important in the existing complicated geopolitical situation.
The officials agreed that attraction of investments both domestic capital and foreign capital were vital for economic growth. For Latvia to be an attractive for investment, the government should follow a comprehensive approach and create a stable and predictable business environment, taxation environment, and legal environment.
