Position: Finance Minister of Latvia
Incumbent: Andris Vilks
Date of Birth: June 15, 1963
Term: Took office for the first time on Nov. 3, 2010
Key facts:
-- Vilks backs government plans for further budget cuts on the road to euro adoption under a 7.5 billion euro bailout package led by the International Monetary Fund and European Union.
-- Vilks became politically active only last year, joining Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis's newly formed Unity bloc of three parties, which won a general election in October. -- He was a well-respected chief economist at SEB, the second biggest bank in Latvia, until the end of 2009. From 2008, he was also an adviser on economics and the banking sector to Dombrovskis and the previous prime minister.
-- Vilks hopes Latvia's credit rating will be improved in the first quarter of 2011 due to a further economic recovery and further budget cuts. This could lead Latvia to tap international financial markets in the second half of 2011.
-- Producing a 2012 budget with new fiscal consolidation measures will be a challenge for Vilks and will show whether it is possible to implement reforms in education, healthcare and social care, which society and business have called for.