From the Baltic Times:
Migrant workers will not return
Aug 29, 2007
By TBT staff and wire reports
RIGA - Only around a third of Latvians who have moved abroad for better-paid jobs are expected to return to their homeland, according to Integration Minister Oskars Kastens.
In an interview with Latvian business newspaper Dienas Bizness Aug. 29, Kastens said: “It depends on many factors. First of all, it depends on the economic situation in the country. Experience of other European countries shows that about one third of emigrants return, and, I believe, that is the number we can count on. If 60,000 people have gone abroad, then we might focus on 20,000 Latvians to come back - that is our objective," he said.
Kastens said that one of the main reasons for the labor force exodus is low wages at home, and the issue can be tackled by raising pay and living standards, particularly in the regions. "Of course, regional reform is not a magic wand to solve problems. But if we manage to see through reforms and arrange infrastructure to increase people's mobility in the country, in my opinion, it will improve the situation," said Kastens.
Speaking about the possibility of reorganizing the tax system to provide extra incentives for business, Kastens said that his ministry currently has no proposals to reduce taxes. “At present, when the country is moving towards a zero-deficit budget, it would be wrong to speak against the course taken by the finance ministry. But it does not mean we are not going to support the issue in the future," he said.
Kastens added that it would do no harm to study Ireland's experience and introduce "tax vacations" for new companies.
The minister also said that it is important to keep in touch with Latvians working abroad and regularly inform them about job opportunities in Latvia.
Kastens admitted that Latvia will have to import foreign workers itself if the flow of emigrants is not stopped.
According to official figures in the main destination countries for Latvian labor, Ireland has around 26,000 registered Latvian workers and the UK around 35,000. Those figures do not include any illegal workers, or workers in other countries, suggesting that Kastens’ estimate of the total number of Latvians currently working abroad may be low.
Friday, June 29, 2007
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Latvian Ministers Change Their Tune on Economic Outlook
From the Baltic Times:
Ministers change tune on economic outlook, but are they two years too late?
RIGA - Finally, a top government official has come out and said what many – from the erudite analyst to the bewildered consumer – have been waiting to hear about Latvia’s irrational economic boom, which is threatening to propel the country into a prolonged cold spell. “Salaries have been growing at a cosmic speed during the rule of the present government,” Prime Minister Aigars Kalvitis told a public private council on Aug. 15, referring to the current 33 percent annual rise in gross salaries. “If pay rises continue at the same rate, we will simply blow up this country,” he said.
Such illustrious hyperbole – Latvia “blowing up” thanks to a time-bomb of skyrocketing wages, high inflation, a labor market crunch and easy credit – is a far cry from official rhetoric as recently as a year ago. Previously ministers bragged about Latvia’s double-digit GDP indicators and shrugged off eurozone membership deadlines, reiterating that the primary economic goal was to raise living standards to average EU levels as quickly as possible. As Finance Minister Oskars Spurdzins said last December, “If we do not maintain the growth rate [of 7 - 10 percent], then of course we will not reach the average EU living standards that soon, or we will probably never reach them at all.” And so the ruling coalition continued to compile growth-stimulating budgets at a time when drastic fiscal restraint was in order.
As Valdis Dombrovskis, a member of the opposition party New Era, told the Russian language Telegraf recently, the government’s economic policy has been “to push the pedal to the metal.” The results are well known – and continue to haunt Latvia. On Aug. 17 Fitch, a major international ratings agency, downgraded several of the Baltic state’s ratings. “The Latvian economy is severely overheating, and Fitch considers the policy reaction of the government to be insufficient to restore the economy to a sustainable growth path,” the agency said in a statement. The criticism echoes sentiment in other agencies, banks and international finance institutions such as the IMF: Latvia’s government hasn’t done near enough to combat overly high economic expansion.
Arguably, the Kalvitis government, which has been in control since December 2004, made its biggest mistakes when it compiled pro-growth budgets for 2006 and 2007. On Nov. 14, 2006, the Cabinet announced a budget plan with a 1.4 percent (of GDP) deficit, which Parliament eventually passed. With that stroke the government’s primary lever of economic regulation – fiscal policy – was thrown to the wind. In fact, as of last year a balanced budget wasn’t even seriously considered in the country’s medium-term plans. Finance Minister Oskars Spurdzins said on Dec. 11 that a zerodeficit budget “could be achieved by 2010.” In the meantime, average annual inflation reached 6.5 percent last year, considerably above the government’s target of 5 - 5.5 percent set in December 2005. The Finance Ministry, in fact, has consistently been way off mark.
In December the ministry predicted inflation in 2007 would be 5.9 percent. It is now clicking along at 9.5 percent and breaking records on a monthly basis. Past mistakes aside, the question now is whether the government has the will to make the painful decisions to prevent a meltdown. One idea that is being floated is to link all wage increases for state-sector employees with productivity. But this is likely to trigger a further exodus of doctors, teachers, policemen, postal workers and public transportation drivers and intensify Latvia’s labor crisis. Shelving state-subsidized building projects is another idea, and perhaps the most crucial since public demand is “squeezing out” private demand, particularly in the construction sector. Kalvitis told the council last week that the government could no longer invest in new development projects, since budget money is going to salary hikes. Yet the Castle of Light, the grandiose library project, is proceeding as planned and will soak up some 11 million lats (15.7 million euros) this year.
Even Bank of Latvia Chairman Ilmars Rimsevics has warned about the macroeconomic repercussions of this project, but the demiurge behind the library, Culture Minister Helena Demakova, is a fellow party member of Kalvitis. Construction is slated to begin Nov. 18. Transport Minister Ainars Slesers is as equally keen on a new international airport for Riga, though the government has yet to decide how to finance this. Meanwhile, ministers also seem to be changing their tune on guest workers. In December Kalvitis said the government did not plan to open the country’s doors to foreign workers and that employers should be encouraged to raise productivity and to raise salaries. “If borders are opened up, all this [present growth] will be destroyed, so the borders will not be opened,” Kalvitis said Dec. 13.
On Aug. 20, however, Slesers was quoted as saying Latvia should attract guest workers to fill the yawning labor deficit. “In such an intensive phase of development we simply don’t have the resources,” he said, suggesting that foreigners could be invited to work on specific construction sites. Slesers, in fact, seems to have taken the opposite standpoint from Kalvitis on the question of rising salaries. In an interview with Baltic News Service, he said that the salary increases are the only way of stopping people from leaving Latvia, and conversely, to get them to return. “We have to create workplaces enabling people to earn good money,” said the minister, predicting that Riga would become one of Europe’s most expensive cities.
Ministers change tune on economic outlook, but are they two years too late?
RIGA - Finally, a top government official has come out and said what many – from the erudite analyst to the bewildered consumer – have been waiting to hear about Latvia’s irrational economic boom, which is threatening to propel the country into a prolonged cold spell. “Salaries have been growing at a cosmic speed during the rule of the present government,” Prime Minister Aigars Kalvitis told a public private council on Aug. 15, referring to the current 33 percent annual rise in gross salaries. “If pay rises continue at the same rate, we will simply blow up this country,” he said.
Such illustrious hyperbole – Latvia “blowing up” thanks to a time-bomb of skyrocketing wages, high inflation, a labor market crunch and easy credit – is a far cry from official rhetoric as recently as a year ago. Previously ministers bragged about Latvia’s double-digit GDP indicators and shrugged off eurozone membership deadlines, reiterating that the primary economic goal was to raise living standards to average EU levels as quickly as possible. As Finance Minister Oskars Spurdzins said last December, “If we do not maintain the growth rate [of 7 - 10 percent], then of course we will not reach the average EU living standards that soon, or we will probably never reach them at all.” And so the ruling coalition continued to compile growth-stimulating budgets at a time when drastic fiscal restraint was in order.
As Valdis Dombrovskis, a member of the opposition party New Era, told the Russian language Telegraf recently, the government’s economic policy has been “to push the pedal to the metal.” The results are well known – and continue to haunt Latvia. On Aug. 17 Fitch, a major international ratings agency, downgraded several of the Baltic state’s ratings. “The Latvian economy is severely overheating, and Fitch considers the policy reaction of the government to be insufficient to restore the economy to a sustainable growth path,” the agency said in a statement. The criticism echoes sentiment in other agencies, banks and international finance institutions such as the IMF: Latvia’s government hasn’t done near enough to combat overly high economic expansion.
Arguably, the Kalvitis government, which has been in control since December 2004, made its biggest mistakes when it compiled pro-growth budgets for 2006 and 2007. On Nov. 14, 2006, the Cabinet announced a budget plan with a 1.4 percent (of GDP) deficit, which Parliament eventually passed. With that stroke the government’s primary lever of economic regulation – fiscal policy – was thrown to the wind. In fact, as of last year a balanced budget wasn’t even seriously considered in the country’s medium-term plans. Finance Minister Oskars Spurdzins said on Dec. 11 that a zerodeficit budget “could be achieved by 2010.” In the meantime, average annual inflation reached 6.5 percent last year, considerably above the government’s target of 5 - 5.5 percent set in December 2005. The Finance Ministry, in fact, has consistently been way off mark.
In December the ministry predicted inflation in 2007 would be 5.9 percent. It is now clicking along at 9.5 percent and breaking records on a monthly basis. Past mistakes aside, the question now is whether the government has the will to make the painful decisions to prevent a meltdown. One idea that is being floated is to link all wage increases for state-sector employees with productivity. But this is likely to trigger a further exodus of doctors, teachers, policemen, postal workers and public transportation drivers and intensify Latvia’s labor crisis. Shelving state-subsidized building projects is another idea, and perhaps the most crucial since public demand is “squeezing out” private demand, particularly in the construction sector. Kalvitis told the council last week that the government could no longer invest in new development projects, since budget money is going to salary hikes. Yet the Castle of Light, the grandiose library project, is proceeding as planned and will soak up some 11 million lats (15.7 million euros) this year.
Even Bank of Latvia Chairman Ilmars Rimsevics has warned about the macroeconomic repercussions of this project, but the demiurge behind the library, Culture Minister Helena Demakova, is a fellow party member of Kalvitis. Construction is slated to begin Nov. 18. Transport Minister Ainars Slesers is as equally keen on a new international airport for Riga, though the government has yet to decide how to finance this. Meanwhile, ministers also seem to be changing their tune on guest workers. In December Kalvitis said the government did not plan to open the country’s doors to foreign workers and that employers should be encouraged to raise productivity and to raise salaries. “If borders are opened up, all this [present growth] will be destroyed, so the borders will not be opened,” Kalvitis said Dec. 13.
On Aug. 20, however, Slesers was quoted as saying Latvia should attract guest workers to fill the yawning labor deficit. “In such an intensive phase of development we simply don’t have the resources,” he said, suggesting that foreigners could be invited to work on specific construction sites. Slesers, in fact, seems to have taken the opposite standpoint from Kalvitis on the question of rising salaries. In an interview with Baltic News Service, he said that the salary increases are the only way of stopping people from leaving Latvia, and conversely, to get them to return. “We have to create workplaces enabling people to earn good money,” said the minister, predicting that Riga would become one of Europe’s most expensive cities.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
