OREANDA-NEWS. April 30, 2008. Ivars Godmanis, Prime Minister of the Republic of Latvia, met Rachel van Elkan, International Monetary Fund (IMF) mission chief for Latvia, and other representatives of the IMF in order to discuss the macro-economic situation in Latvia, the role of the fiscal policy in ensuring sustainable growth rate of the national economy and various aspects of competitiveness of the national economy. This was the second and the last meeting of the Latvian Prime Minister and representatives of the IMF during Fund’s mission in Latvia, reported the Official website www.mk.gov.lv.

The Prime Minister informed the representatives of the IMF about some indicators describing the development of the Latvian economy, including the balance of the dismissed and recruited employees which is positive – the number of required employees is considerably above the number of dismissed employees.

Ivars Godmanis also informed about the so-called share of doubtful loans which according to the banking sector information remains low (0,6%), as well as about the implementation of the budget revenues in Quarter 1 of 2008.

The IMF preventatives pointed out to the signs of rapid decrease of the development of the Latvian economy and expressed rather negative projections about the GDP growth in 2008 and further decrease of the growth rate in 2009. According to them, more rapid development could be expected in 2010.

The Latvian Prime Minister expressed commitment of the Government to take measures aimed at ensuring more positive results than those forecasted by the IMF.