Company briefs - 2011-09-29

U.S. space agency NASA and Lithuanian industry could cooperate, said Simon P. Worden, director of the NASA Ames Research Center, paying a visit to the country last week, reports ELTA. According to the scientist, the country’s science potential would allow a successful contribution to the NASA projects. “Traditionally, NASA cooperates with Russian, European and Japanese space agencies. Yet now, implementing the new space policy of U.S. President Barack Obama, we are looking for ways to cooperate with non-traditional and technologically advanced partners. Lithuania is known for advanced technologies, especially in the field of small satellites. We are considering cooperation with different universities and companies and we expect to implement joint projects,” the NASA official said.

In August, the Latvian banking sector issued 8,700 new loans in the total amount of 153 million lats (218.5 million euros), said Financial and Capital Market Commission representative Anna Dravniece, reports LETA. Since the beginning of the year, the banking sector has issued 830 million lats in 113,000 new loans. The banks’ loans to non-financial companies amounted to 363.4 million lats, to financial enterprises 66.4 million lats, to households 100 million lats, and to non-residents  297.4 million lats. The banking sector’s loan portfolio has dropped 6.1 percent, or 874 million lats since the beginning of 2011 and stood at 13.5 billion lats at the end of August.

Estonian state-owned export credit agency Kredex will order 507 ordinary electric car chargers from ABB, which will be installed all over Estonia according to the wishes of local municipalities and which will cost 443,112 euros, reports Postimees Online. In addition to the ordinary chargers, Kredex has under way an order to buy speed chargers. While the speed charger enables the recharging of a battery in 15-20 minutes, an ordinary charger takes several hours. Ten offers were submitted for the procurement: 7 qualified. The bids came from Estonian and foreign companies. The chargers are meant to service the 507 Mitsubishi i-MiEV electric cars that the state buys for pollution quota proceeds and gives for social workers to use.