RIGA, Aug. 8 (Xinhua) -- Latvia needs to maintain its defense spending at 2 percent of GDP and could even raise it slightly in the coming years, President Egils Levits and Defense Minister Artis Pabriks agreed at a meeting on Thursday.

The president's office informed that Levits met with Pabriks to discuss Latvian troops' involvement in multinational operations and work on a comprehensive national defense system, which is expected to include state institutions, businesses, the local population and also Latvians residing abroad.

Levits and the defense minister talked about the necessity to keep allocating at least 2 percent of the Baltic country's GDP to the defense sector as required by NATO or even to slightly increase the defense budget.

The president met with the defense minister as part of a round of meetings with all cabinet ministers of Latvia's center-right government.