‘Recently, the number of attractedFDI projects has been increasing every year, which has determined our leadership in Central and Eastern Europe. Currently, we are among three EU Member States attracting the most investment and we start competing with the strongest players in this league. We therefore set ambitious goals to achieve the level of the leading EU Member States,’ says Armonaitė.
Invest Lithuania sets its goals to attract within five years, investments creating 10 thousand new jobs in the business services sector of Lithuania; investments in fixed assets amounting to EUR 1 billion in the manufacturing sector creating 6 thousand new jobs. The aim is to attract investments to create 3.5 thousand new jobs in the ICT and financial technology sectors; the life sciences sector aims to attract EUR 200 million of investment in fixed assets and create 2 thousand new jobs.
Attracting direct investment will focus both on traditional target countries, like Belarus, Denmark, the US, the UK, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Germany, and also on Singapore and Switzerland. By 2025, it is also planned to expand the representation of the public body Invest Lithuania abroad and to increase the number of representatives in Germany and the UK; new representatives are planned to be established in Sweden and the East and West Coast of the US.
Seeking to improve Lithuania’s investment climate the main activities include reforms in education, business regulation and supervision, talent attracting and recovering of emigrated professionals as well as the development of airports and introducing new flight destinations for businesses. Attention will also be devoted to the innovation system development, assistance to innovative enterprises and additional incentives to attract highly qualified professionals. It is planned to attract up to 2 thousand highly qualified professionals under the ‘Work in Lithuania’ programme.
Service projects, ICT and financial technology projects, manufacturing projects (renewable energy equipment, automotive solutions, batteries, industrial installations), life science projects (biotechnology, medical equipment) are identified as priority.
In the last six years, Invest Lithuania managed to attract a record number of FDI amounting to a total of 225 projects. Some of them are carried out by world-famous companies AmerisourceBergen, Dana Incorporated, McKesson Epam Systems. At this time, the largest manufacturing projects were implemented in Lithuania and contributed by Continental and Hella.
Besides, Lithuania has been established in the map of service centres industry; at the end of 2019, the global services industry employed nearly 19 thousand professionals in Lithuania; Lithuania has become among the most important ICT investment attraction centres in Europe. Currently, Lithuania is among the fastest growing fintech centres in Europe; we are leading in terms of the highest number of licenses issued and rank 4th in international fintech rankings.
