OREANDA-NEWS. On February 09, 2007, during his official visit to the Republic of Lithuania, Ivars Godmanis, Prime Minister of the Republic of Latvia, met Rimantas Taraskevicius, Mayor of Klaipeda, and had a short ship tour in order to see Klaipeda Seaport, reported the Official website www.mk.gov.lv.

Ivars Godmanis, Gediminas Kirkilas and Rimantas Taraskevicius discussed the economic development of both countries and port development issues. The Latvian Prime Minister emphasised: „As we are an EU Member State, a short time ago we joined the Schengen Zone and as we plan to introduce the Euro in future, our port will face free competition of the single market.”

The Head of the Latvian Government admitted that it is an essential tasks to foster inflow of cargos with a high added value into the ports and transhipment of cargos of a high value. Ivars Godmanis stressed the necessity to encourage the development of such production industries which would use cargos shipped to the local ports in order to increase the added value to the national economy.