Western Union transfer to Lithuania

  • 2010-06-03
  • From wire reports

VILNIUS - In another vote of confidence for Lithuania’s business climate, Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius announced the choice of Western Union, the international financial services company and leader of innovations, to invest in Lithuania, reports news agency LETA. Kubilius stressed that this move was yet more proof that consistent efforts by the government to attract global high-tech leaders to Lithuania is yielding excellent results.
“I am glad that more and more innovation and high-tech leaders, of all the countries around the world, choose Lithuania as the best place to establish their advanced service centers. This shows that we are able to win in the global competition for talent and attraction of high technologies, as well as to provide the best environment for investment,” said the country’s leader.

According to the prime minister, this was yet another result of consistent and intense efforts in trying to attract the world-class high-tech companies to invest in Lithuania. “Investments like this will not only lead to the creation of new jobs in Lithuania and increase in the export of Lithuanian services, but they will also stimulate Lithuania to make a breakthrough moving towards a high value-added economy. I know that a number of well-known companies are going to follow the footsteps of Barclays, IBM, Fermento and now Western Union,” he said.

Western Union has more than 410,000 agent locations in over 200 countries and territories around the world. The services center in Vilnius is going to be the fourth international center for the company. Western Union has more than 6,000 employees, with a turnover of 5.1 billion dollars in 2009.
In March 2010, the global foreign direct investment monitor database FDiMarkets.com announced that 28 foreign investors entered the Lithuanian market in 2009, investing over 3.5 billion litas (1 billion euros) and created 5,300 new jobs.

The UK’s Barclays Group has established a global information technologies center in Vilnius. One of the global leaders in advanced technologies, IBM, and the Lithuanian government have recently signed a Protocol of Intent on the establishment of a joint research center in Lithuania.
Moog Medical, the U.S. manufacturer of medical devices, launched production, services and R&D of medical devices in Lithuania. The leading ventilation company, Sweden’s Systemair, plans to open a new ventilation equipment manufacturing plant in Ukmerge, and Spain’s Gruppo Sopena plans to open an aluminium parts plant in Alytus industrial park.