Ex-Minister of Finance of Latvia and Bank of Latvia council member Andris Bilks has passes away, as LETA was told by the central bank.
Vilks passed away at the age of 60 from an illness he had been battling a long time.
From 1987 to 1994 Vilks worked in state institutions and non-governmental organizations, but from 1995 to 2010 he worked in SEB Bank. From 2007 to 2009 he served as the bank’s chief economist.
From 2005 to 2010, he was the head of the Economic and Monetary Committee of the Financial Industry Association (formerly the Association of Latvian Commercial Banks), but from 2007 to 2008, Vilks was a member of the Macroeconomic Stabilization Group of the Latvian government.
Vilks was elected to the 10th and 11th Saeima from Unity. Between 2010 and 2014 he served as Latvia’s Minister of Finance, as well as Latvia’s authorised representatives to the World Bank, European Investment Bank, European Reconstruction and development bank, Nordic Investment bank and European Council Bank. In 2008 and 2009, Vilks served as a freelance advisor to then the Latvian Prime Minister Ivars Godmanis, and in 2009 and 2010 – as an economic and financial advisor to then the Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis. He also served as an economic advisor to the Latvian Association of Large Cities.
In February-October of 2020 Vilks served as Senior Officer for Institutional Affairs of the Baltic States Regional Representation of the European Investment Bank in Vilnius. In 2016-2020 he served as Executive Director and member of the Board of Directors of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in London, representing the European Investment Bank as a shareholder. In In 2017-2019, he was Deputy Head of the Audit Committee, but in 2016 – Senior Adviser to the European Investment Bank in Luxembourg and in 2013 and 2014 – Deputy Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, representing Latvia.
On the 1st of October, 2020, the Saeima appointed Vilks as a member of the Council of the Bank of Latvia for a term of five years, which began on the 16th of November, 2020.
He is a cavalier of the Estonian Order of the Cross of Terra Mariana.
Andris Vilks was born on the 15th of June 1963.
Also read: Swedbank study: cost of living offsets wage growth in the Baltics
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