Lithuanian farms become investment attraction

  • 2005-04-27
  • From wire reports
VILNIUS - Investors have become more attracted to Lithuania's agricultural sector amid a rise in purchase prices of agricultural products and a flood of EU assistance funds.

As the Lietuvos Zinios daily reported this week, Lithuanian farmers are gradually proving their ability to compete on the common market. "Previously there were many skeptics as far as the use of EU assistance for investments into agricultural sector is concerned," said Albertas Gapsys, expert at the Lithuanian Institute of Agrarian Economics.

"The first year of EU membership has proved, however, that Lithuania's agricultural producers may compete on the EU market successfully and investments into this sector are worthwhile," he stressed.

Almost 200 agricultural companies active on Lithuania's market cover approximately half of aggregate domestic agricultural output.

Agrovaldymo Grupe, which controls 10 agricultural companies and 5,000 hectares of land, intends to expand its holding to 20,000-25,000 hectares by 2007 and invest up to 60 million litas (17.4 million euros) in agriculture in the upcoming five-year period, the paper reported.

Investments into agricultural production reached 300 million litas each year in 2003-2004, the institute said. According to the data made available by the National Paying Agency, investments into primary agricultural production made up 38.6 percent of SAPARD funds.

Lithuanian agricultural and food product exports rose 24.3 percent to 2.9 billion litas in 2004, the Ministry of Agriculture said earlier this month. Exports to EU countries surged 50.2 percent to 2.1 billion litas, while exports to CIS markets increased 2.5 percent to 689 million litas.