Exports reach record level

  • 2011-01-06
  • From wire reports

VILNIUS - The economy minister says that Lithuania’s record results in the exports market in October point to the full recovery of the country’s industry and exports after the hard economic times, reports news agency ELTA. This despite Lithuania being ranked only 53rd by exports per capita and covers only 0.14 percent of the global market. At a meeting of Lithuanian commerce attaches and businessmen in foreign markets at the exhibition center LITEXPO on Dec. 15, Economy Minister Dainius Kreivys noted that October’s exports reached record high levels, as they totaled 5.4 billion litas (1.5 billion euros), as the most successful month till now was July 2008, when exports reached 5.3 billion litas.

“Where foreign countries stimulated consumption during the crisis, we put everything into the [export] business. And I can safely say that after 2 or 4 years we will have much more exports of high technologies and services. When foreign markets did not grow, we sought the best results [elsewhere]. We sought the results at the expense of other countries, so there is further work to be done. We are ranked 53rd, thus, if we reached at least position 23, as called for in Doing Business, it would be great,” said Kreivys.

The economy minister stressed that Lithuania, despite the best results in its history, was still in the export growth stage, and has said that there would be no sharp fall in exports, though it would most likely be impossible to avoid fluctuations and further volatility.

Together with Eksportuojancioji Lietuva, which coordinates the national network of business representatives in 15 foreign countries, according to the minister, the state will seek improvement and optimization of the results. Over the past two years, 130 million litas was allocated to Lithuania’s corporate marketing, which includes participation in exhibitions, visits abroad, production of test samples. The funds reimbursed from 50 to 70 percent of company costs.

According to the CEO of Eksportuojancioji Lietuva, Paulius Lukauskas, the commercial attache network is constantly expanding, while the country’s support to the improvement of technologies and marketing has helped raise the competitiveness of Lithuanian companies in global markets. The main goal now is to sell products, in which the commercial attache plays an important role, Kreivys says.

In 2011, Eksportuojancioji Lietuva will purchase services for businesses from representatives from the Netherlands, the United States, Kazakhstan, Poland and supervise the Economy Ministry’s network of commercial attaches in Sweden, Germany, the United Kingdom, China, Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan, France, Norway.