Pension plans to double in 2004

  • 2004-02-05
  • Baltic News Service
Around 280,000 to 400,000 people in Lithuania are expected to join second-pillar pension schemes this year, close to the number of people who did so during the first phase of the country's pension reform in 2003.

Augustas Staniulis, project manager at Hansa Investiciju Valdymas, a member of the Hansabank group, said that despite a slow start, around 350,000 people are expected to join pension schemes in the second phase of the reform this year. This would bring the total number of people in private pension schemes to 791,000.
"This year our goal is to attract up to 50 percent of new participants," Staniulis said in a news conference last week. He said the country's pension funds should attract a total of 120 million litas (34.7 million euros) in funds in the first three quarters of 2004.
VB Investiciju Valdymas, a subsidiary of Vilniaus Bankas, which is owned by Sweden's SEB, forecasts that the total number of people in private pension schemes should reach between 720,000 and 800,000 by the end of the second phase of industry reform.