Ašeradens: the state budget should contribute to changes in national economy

The state budget should contribute to changes in Latvia’s national economy. This is why it is necessary to ensure that Economy Ministry recognizes efforts to increase productivity of the national economy, export growth, attraction of investments, innovations and business environment development as priorities in the process for the formation of the next three-year state budget, says Economy Minister Arvils Ašeradens.

«Finding a solution for a reduction of the mandatory procurement component was important for strengthening business competitiveness and reducing residents’ expenses. And this was possible thanks to the government approving the ministry’s proposal to reduce support for Latvenergo TEC stations. This will result in reduced electricity fees for most households and businesses and improved competitiveness for Latvia’s manufacturing companies,» says the minister.
 

Economy Ministry’s and its institutions’ total budget for 2018 is approved at EUR 183,966,614. The largest portion of this amount – EUR 89,314,340 – is intended for reducing MPC, as well as supporting energy-intensive companies and protected users. An additional amount of EUR 29,372,507 will be allocated for the energy policy.
 

The ministry notes that a total amount of EUR 9,642,894 will be allocated to improve construction quality, construction process supervision and reduction of administrative burden in this sector, as well as improving housing availability.
 

At the same time, it is also planned to expand housing support programme next year and apply it to people with higher or secondary vocational education and whose age does not exceed 35 years.
 

Ašeradens comments: «Our priority is improving housing accessibility and motivating residents to stay in Latvia and others – to return to their homeland. This will help reduce labour force loss and emigration.»
 

The planned tax reform that includes 0% corporate income tax for reinvested profits is one of the main elements for entrepreneurship in the context of the next year’s state budget. ‘CIT reform will benefit all businessmen, especially medium and small ones. The number of those businessmen will increase with time, which will make attraction of additional funding easier and create new opportunities for investments in business development and innovations,’ says the minister.
 

2018 will see the continuation of dozens of support programmes for business support and development of energy efficiency. Funding for support of business competitiveness is EUR 34,011,736. This programme will support international competitiveness on export markets, projects for commercialization of research results, export projects and new potential investment projects and attraction of direct foreign investments.
 

To ensure fair competition and protection of domestic market and consumers’ rights, the 2018 state budget will allocate EUR 4,647,349.
 

To provide comprehensive information about economic, demographic and social developments, the 2018 budget will provide funding worth EUR 10,073,215.
 

To ensure balanced political planning and development of the national economy’s competitiveness, the state budget will allocate EUR 6,904,537. This funding will be used to develop, organize and coordinate economic policy’s realization, as well as development of the dialogue with businessmen and society for EU fund’s 2014-2020 planning period, micro-enterprise business and energy field.

BNN

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