The State Revenue Service (VID) will likely start paying out the State aid to mortgage borrowers within a week, Latvian Radio reported April 9.
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There's no real unemployment in Latvia, says Arnis Sauka, Assistant Professor at the Stockholm School of Economics, in an interview with Latvian Radio's Aiga Pelane.
The average Latvian monthly pay has grown from €164 in 2001 to €631 after taxes in 2016. While it's a formidable achievement, it still puts Latvia a long way behind what workers can earn abroad, reports Latvian Radio's Aiga Pelane.
Latvia's defense budget will reach 2% of GDP next year, as per a promise to the country's NATO partners. A total €576 million will be spent on defense, €126 million more than this year. Latvia's defense priorities are currently developing the Ādaži military base and the combat abilities of the armed forces.
The Vārkava municipality has the lowest registered crime rate in Latvia at 6.12 per 1,000 inhabitants, followed by Vaiņode and Ērgļi at 6.4 and 6.48 respectively.
Despite being hit with unprecedented fines and subjected to increasing regulatory scrutiny, banks continue to post staggering profits in Latvia, with the 2016 profit of the banking sector up 9.1% on year over 2015.
The upcoming tax reform hangs on the decision by the European Commission and will have to be scaled down should Latvia is not allowed to increase its budget deficit, said MP Augusts Brigmanis, head of the Union of Greens and Farmers' Saeima group.
Latvia is the fourth poorest EU state in terms of GDP per capita. According to Eurostat data from 2015 (published in March 2017), the quality of life in Latvia is just 64% of the European average.
In the last few years the number of work permits issued to foreign workers has been growing steadily, according to data by the Citizenship and Migration Affairs Office (PMLP). Despite unemployment at close to 10%, more and more businesses attract guest workers, mostly from neighboring countries. The majority of guest workers come from Ukraine, Lithuania, Russia, Bulgaria and Belarus.
While foreign money started fleeing the Baltics and 2015 and early 2016, foreign direct investment is once again picking up the pace in Latvia and Estonia. There's no official data yet for Lithuania.
Latvia's tourism industry is growing steadily, with 2.3 million people having stayed at hotels and other types of accommodation in Latvia last year, which is 7.7% more than in 2015, according to data by the Central Statistics Office.
In this viewpoint piece Aiga Pelane, a news producer at Latvian Radio, highlights the expected benefits and upcoming challenges in building the Rail Baltica high-speed link across the three Baltic States.