PM Kariņš marks 100 days in office

Take note – story published 4 years ago

Prime Minister Krišjānis Kariņš (New Unity party) passed his first one hundred days as premier April 23 with a press conference summing up what he and his government have done during that period.

Flanked by his deputies Jānis Bordāns (New Conservatives) and Juris Pūce (Development/For!), Kariņš told journalists:

"Today is April 23rd and three months since we formed a government... it's a good opportunity to see what we have done and to look further ahead into the future."

The government had just approved the full version of the "action plan" drawn up as the basis of the coalition agreement in a more concrete form that would guide policy in coming years, he said.

Kariņš said the government was working well with each party showing willingness "not to work just within its own narrow area" but to work "horizontally" i.e. for ministers to cooperate with each other because "The solutions the country needs are complex."

"In my opinion, what our country needs is investment. If I am asked what is my main priority, I would say it is the need for growth in private investment," Kariņš said, "How can we achieve that as a government? It is to ensure that there is an environment for investment to come in, and first of all that means finding stability and predictability."

"Stability is extremely important for investment," he underlined, "but that's not enough on its own."

Cleaning up the financial sector was another aspect of creating this stable environment, as are reforms of the legal system and local government, he said, and voiced hopes that the government action plan would allow budgets for the rest of the four-year government term to pass more easily. 

For his part, Bordāns said that measures were being taken against "offshorization" by cleaning up the business register to make sure that only real businesses with real owners that pay taxes can enjoy the status of existing in Latvia. "Thousands" of such companies had already been removed from the business register and the process would likely continue until early August.

"We want our business register to be an effective database so that when investors come they can see who works here," Bordāns said, adding that the measures would also help with improving the tax system and fighting money laundering.

In one moment of discord however, Pūce confirmed that despite filling in an application for top-level security clearance three months ago, not only had it not been granted, but that he had received no request for further information or an invitation to an interview "or any other contact" from the security services since then.

 

 

 

 

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