Benefits, healthcare, affordable housing the key solutions to improve demographic situation in Latvia - Rinkevics

RIGA - The main solutions to improve demographic situation in Latvia are to revise benefits, improve healthcare and promote affordable housing, President Edgars Rinkevics said in an interview with Latvian Television on Thursday.

Rinkevics said that he came to this conclusion after a meeting on demographic matters where different plans, studies and concepts were examined, which boiled down to three categories of problems: benefits, healthcare, affordable housing.

According to Rinkevics, some benefits in Latvia have not been raised for as long as 20 years. "There are things where we need to make it clear to families that the state is consistent and will continue to support them," he said.

Commenting on affordable housing, Rinkevics said that it was very difficult for families to take out a mortgage to buy a house anywhere further than 70 kilometers from Riga. The Economics Ministry has been looking into this problem, and the president hopes that it will soon come up with some proposals to solve it.

Rinkevics believes that some benefits for families living further away from Riga should be reconsidered.

Rinkevics called for a serious discussion on solutions to improve the demographic situation in the next few years, taking into consideration the three main problems he had mentioned.