For Gavin Jones, project director of a new EU-Phare pilot program, WES 2000, Lithuania can stand to leverage its geographic position to become an important European trader.
"All three Baltic states have got a unique geographic advantage. That's one of the reasons why they've been fought over and had such a checkered history for seventy years," Jones said. "As you move products backwards and forwards and in and out, you've got 320 million people in what was the Soviet Union, and you've got about the same number of people on the EU side. Trade by definition means two-way traffic."
The Lithuanian Development Agency will oversee WES 2000, an export promotion program that could help Lithuania out of its exporting doldrums. The program is funded by EU-Phare, which is spending 5 million litas ($1.25 million) over a 16-month period to provide Lithuanian companies with assistance in several aspects of exporting, including production, quality certification and finding new European markets. At its peak the program will involve 50 Lithuanian companies, said Sigitas Brazinskas, the LDA's export department director who designed much of the program.
Jones, a native of Aberdeen, Scotland, spends much of his time hurtling around the country in a car, visiting Lithuanian exporters and being impressed.
"I think the Lithuanian companies are thinking far further ahead than some of the other Baltic companies," he said. "There are significant levels of investment going in. There are far higher proportions of companies here seeking internationally recognized standards, and the levels of products that they've got are as good, and in some cases better, than these products in Central and Eastern Europe."
The problem is, Lithuanian companies are not completely up-to-speed in Western selling or marketing techniques.
"Their higher-value products have, I think, been missing out on Western markets, which could lead to higher prices for them. And what they're needing is a bit of assistance and a bit of help in the systematic marketing approach that a lot of Western companies use to identify customers," said Jones.
Most Lithuanian companies would have trouble competing with EU companies at this point, Jones concedes, but continued contacts among Lithuanian and Western business interests can help immensely.
"There are a significant number of companies which have got strategic linkages with a number of foreign companies, and I don't suppose for a minute that they show up as a significant foreign investment. But on the longer term, and for the indigenous growth of Lithuania, they're probably far more valuable."
One particular Western protocol Lithuanian companies need to understand is quality certification. In Europe this means ISO 9000.
"ISO is not legally required. It's very often commercially required," said Jones. "All an ISO standard is is a get-in-the-front-door card."
A Lithuanian company, Jones thinks, should also learn to write its own market brief, a short report on a specific market in a foreign country that outlines all the ins and outs affecting the bottom line.
"Writing it is not at all that hard," he said. "The hard part is getting the information." However, Jones said, a surprising amount of specific information can be obtained over the Internet, or via simple phone calls. "People overcomplicate this task," he said.
The system employed in WES 2000 is being developed by the United Kingdom Department of Trade and Industry but is refined in Lithuania by Brazinskas and the LDA. It focuses not on the product, but on the buyer. "This is a continually refining product," said Jones. "But the need for this is not a uniquely Lithuanian issue. This is an approach that has to be adapted to the target market and the target customer. Buyer conditions are going to be the same irrespective of where the product comes from."
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