Premier Viorica Dancila met on Saturday in Sofia with her Latvian counterpart Maris Kucinskis, expressing on this occasion interest in deepening sectoral cooperation in areas such as agriculture and state-of-the-art technologies, the government informed in a release, informs Agerpres.
The two officials met in the context of their participation in the seventh Summit of the China - Central and Eastern European Countries cooperation format ('16+1') organized in Sofia.
"The Romanian head of government expressed appreciation for the very good relations between Romania and Latvia and reaffirmed Romania's openness to maintaining a constant dialogue, both from a bilateral perspective and as regards a better coordination in areas of common interest on the European and security agendas," the release said. At the same time, Viorica Dancila mentioned the substantive exchange of views she had with Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics during the latter's visit to Bucharest on July 5.
Also, Dancila said that it is important to give Romanian-Latvian economic cooperation further impetus and best use the existing potential; she also presented PM Kucinskis the opportunities Romania has to offer to foreign investors, referring to the new legislative framework in the field.
"Prime Minister Viorica Dancila voiced interest in taking sectoral cooperation in such fields as agriculture and state-of-the-art technologies to a deeper level and showed appreciation for the two countries' excellent cooperation on defence," the release notes.
The PM said that Romania's holding the Presidency of the Council of the EU for the first time is also a challenge and an opportunity, adding that the government attaches utmost importance to preparations for this term at the EU helm.
Dancila also pointed out that the exercise of this mandate in the first half of 2019 provides an opportunity to intensify bilateral dialogue on topics of common interest and deepen Romania and Latvia's coordination in the field of European affairs.
According to the head of the Executive, the Latvian Prime Minister has accepted the invitation to come to Romania on an official visit this year, indicating that he will be accompanied by an important delegation of business people who will participate in a bilateral economic forum.