Q: You have just passed the budget for 2017. What are the main priorities?
A: The strength of Latvia is that we have been able to keep our fiscal stance of following strict austerity measures right after the crisis, and are now keeping a balanced budget with a minor deficit of 1.1% for 2017 and then 1% in 2018 and 0.7% in 2019. The debt amounts to 36% of gross domestic product [GDP], which is one of the lowest in the EU.
