OREANDA-NEWS. October 14, 2009. In Reval Hotel Latvija, the participants of the Forum on Effective Governance and Partnership emphasized the positive impact of crisis on the public and local government administration reforms and restructuring of the national economy, reported the Official website mk.gov.lv.
 
The President of the Latvian Employers’ Confederation, Vitalijs Gavrilovs, opened the Forum by calling for evaluation of crisis and its overall consequences rather than evaluation of crisis in narrow sectoral perspective. He emphasized the necessity for a clear and common vision for short-term and medium-term goals that could consolidate the society and gain its support for implementation of these goals and reforms.

The Director of the State Chancellery, Gunta Veismane, addressed the participants of the Forum and emphasized that every resident, institution and enterprise currently experience hard times. Therefore, this forum is called a Daybreak Forum, because the night is the darkest just before the dawn. Likewise the situation before economical stabilization might seem pessimistic and without positive future perspectives. The Director of the State Chancellery pointed out that it is important to retain recognized and for years developed systems in the process of continuous cutting of the public administration spending. It is important that the public administration does not become stagnant and disable, but at the same time cheap administration.

The Deputy Director of the State Chancellery, Baiba Petersone informed about the experience of other countries in overcoming the crisis through reforms and supporting the business sector. The successful experience is based on coordinated compromises reached in dialogue with all parties that will be affected by respective decision or reforms.

An essential condition for overcoming the crisis is trust in government and administration which administrates introduction of reforms, honesty and openness in government throughout the decision-making process and in providing information on actual economic situation in the country. B.Petersone indicated that the structural reforms in administration in other countries have also faced opposition, i.e. mobilization of different interests (political, sectoral, NGO’s administrative etc.) aimed at preventing the envisaged changes.

The existing myths about the public administration and local governments were repeatedly highlighted in the Forum. By manipulating with the statistical data they are embodied and accumulated in the society, for instance, the fact that more than 200 000 people are employed in the bureaucratic apparatus of Latvia. In fact, more than 200 000 employees work in public sector financed by the government budget and they include doctors, teachers, policemen, employees of local governments and public administration. Only 66 000 employees are employed in public administration and 14 000 of them are civil servants. Within the period from August 2008 till August 2009, 12 704 employees were dismissed from the public administration sector.

The Minister for Regional Development and Local Governments, Edgars Zalans informed about application of the Strategic Development Plan of Latvia for 2010 – 2013 to current economic situation by formulating common solutions for overcoming the crisis and offering it as the Daybreak Strategy.

In order to boost the national competitiveness, it is necessary to ensure economic growth, social security and efficiency of public administration and services. The minister emphasized, that the Daybreak Strategy should include definite tasks, ambitious challenges and strategic goals closely linked to the budget and funding.

The Head of the Swedbank, Maris Macinskis emphasized that changes and restructuring take place in the business sector although tendencies of stabilization can be observed in the world and declining rates decrease in the Baltic countries. However, stabilization is based on the current fiscal and monetary incentives. In terms of economic indicators Latvia is back to the year 2005 and in the beginning of 2010 the decrease in GDP will be 25%, thus the economy will reach the level of the year 2004. The wage fund was reduced in business sector by 22% mainly by reducing the number of employees, however, the productivity has improved. The manager of the bank pointed out that the former economic development model can not be applied. It is necessary to look for new models. The Government should promote the development of national economy, especially the economy with value added, the investment environment, entrepreneurship with large own capital and investment resources, as well as administrative obstacles should be diminished in business environment.

The reform management experience in private sector was presented by the President of ”Latvijas Mobilais telefons” Ltd., Juris Binde and Aldis Gulbis, Chairman of the board of ”Komerccentrs DATI grupa”.