Business briefs

EBRD GRANTS A LOAN: The European Bank for Reconstruction and
Development has extended a syndicated loan to Germany's DVI
International, a health care financing company, in order to finance
leases of medical equipment by hospitals and diagnostic centers in
the Baltic states, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic. The total
project cost is 30 million euros, of which 10 million euros would be
from the EBRD and 20 million euros being syndicated to other lenders.

ESTONIAN PRICES: Estonia posted the highest consumer price increase
among the three Baltic states last year, the Central Statistics
Office reported. Consumer prices in Estonia grew 5 percent in 2000,
in Latvia 1.8 percent and in Lithuania 1.4 percent. Estonian prices
were pushed up by growing food, housing services, transport services
and fuel prices. In Lithuania the biggest price increase was in the
housing maintenance services, communications and transport services
and fuel. In Latvia price increases were mostly due to administrative
regulation.

NO FERRY: Ferry traffic from Riga to Stockholm will close temporarily
as the ferry Mikhail Sholokhov undergoes regularly scheduled repairs,
the ferry's agent company Mono Linijas (Mono Lines) president Valdis
Silins reported. The ferry will not be back online until mid-February
or early March.

AIRPORT TRANSIT VISA: In accordance with a European Council document
from March 4, 1996 on common measures to regulate airport transit,
the Estonian government adopted a regulation introducing airport
transit visas. The new visa gives the holder the right to enter the
transit area of an Estonian airport, but not the country itself. The
government also ordered Foreign Ministry to draw up, together with
the Interior Ministry, a list of countries whose travel documents
require such a visa.

TALLINN PORT NUMBERS: A total of six million passengers used the
services of Tallinn's passenger port last year. The number of
passengers on the Tallinn-Helsinki route has for several years been
one of the biggest in Europe, trailing only Great Britain, France,
Denmark and Sweden. Travelers on the Helsinki-Stockholm line numbered
three million last year. "Our six million is comparable to the number
of passengers passing through large European airports," a port
spokesman said.

TELE2 GIVEAWAY FIASCO: The telecommunication company Tele2's planned
marketing campaign of distributing 200 free telephones and 1,000 SIM
cards caused confusion in Vilnius recently. Tele2 planned to begin
the campaign on Jan. 5, but it didn't and many hoping to get the
telephones and the cards gathered and caused real confusion in
downtown Vilnius. One person who resisted police officers was
detained, and one police car sustained minor damage. After the
incident Tele2 announced that a lottery will be held to distribute
the telephones and the SIM cards.

BALTIC GAS DEAL: Lithuania's state-owned gas utility Lietuvos Dujos
is planning to establish a gas computation station at the border with
Latvia. After establishing the station, Lietuvos Dujos would receive
gas from Latvia's Incukalns underground gas storage station through a
Soviet-built pipeline. It is planned that the station will cost
approximately 16 million litas. Lietuvos Dujos also reached agreement
with the Russian energy giant Gazprom to buy gas for a lower price in
the summer and store it in the Latvian storage facility in the winter.

TOLARAM IN HOT WATER: The Singapore-based financial group Tolaram
Ltd, the buyer of the Lithuanian textile company Alytaus Tekstile,
might be asked to leave Lithuania due to a failure to live up to the
purchase agreement, the business daily Verslo Zinios reported.
Tolaram was to pay 12.88 million litas ($3.22 million) for the
state's 63.18 percent stake in Alytaus Tekstile. It still owes 9
million litas, the newspaper reported. According to the agreement,
Tolaram must invest 240 million litas in the company over five years,
beginning in 1999.

SPECIAL SUPPORT: The Latvian government agreed on Jan. 9 that in the
new round of talks on agriculture with the World Trade Organization
it will ask for permission to apply special state support conditions
to countries in transition. As regards internal state support, Latvia
is calling for the inclusion of special provisions in the WTO
Agriculture Treaty to enable transition economies to apply special
state support conditions stressing the need to apply permitted
subsidies.

LUKOIL USES RIGA: Russian oil company LUKoil wants to use the port in
Riga for the transportation of oil products, reloading some 10
million tons annually there. Riga port administration said that
LUKoil has no intention of building a terminal in Riga. Instead it
would anchor in the port a tanker to be used as an oil terminal. At
present LUKoil reloads oil through another Latvian port, Ventspils,
on the western coast. Last year the Ventspils port reloaded about 2.6
million tons of LUKoil oil.

JUST E-MAILS: The number of letters and cards sent in the Chistmas
and New Year period dropped by 600,000 in Estonia against 1999. From
the beginning of December until Christmas, 3.1 million letters and
cards were sent by Estonian Post. The sending of letters declined
throughout last year. Estonian Post said the reason for the decline
is the spread of the Internet and unfair competition.

BANK SALE TALKS: Formal negotiations on the sale of a 90.24 percent
stake in Taupomasis Bankas (Savings Bank), Lithuania's largest
state-owned bank, to Estonia's Hansapank were launched on Jan. 10.
Hansapank, the largest financial institution in the Baltic states,
was named the winner in Taupomasis Bankas' privatization tender in
late December after the Lithuanian government agreed to lower the
minimum selling price of the block of shares.