Major Latvian grain processing company Rigas Dzirnavnieks has seen sales jump by nearly 50 percent in the first three quarters of the year despite the country's worsening economic crisis. Company representatives said that Rigas Dzirnavnieks posted 15.5 million lats (22 million euros) in January-September turnover 's a 48 percent boost from the same period a year ago. The company reported that the largest sales increase was in quick cooking breakfast flakes, leading to plans to expand the range of quick cook products in the future. Rigas Dzirnavnieks posted 10.5 million lats in sales in January-September 2007, and 16.3 million lats in 2007 sales, which was a 36 percent rise from 2006.
Gintautas Mazeika, the CEO of the power distribution grid operator Rytu Skirstomieji Tinklai, has been appointed the head of Lithuania's national energy company Leo LT. Among its other duties, Leo LT was created to act as an investment vehicle for the planned nuclear power plant and other multi-billion-lita energy projects. Mazeika, a financial expert and business administrator by profession, was chosen from a number of possible candidates, including Vilius Bernatonis, a lawyer with the lawyers' office Sutkiene, Pilkauskas Ir Partneriai, Valdas Bancevicius, the power grid director at RST, and Darius Montvila, deputy CEO of Hanner real estate development group. Bernatonis, Bancevicius, and Montvila will hold positions on the company's supervisory board.