During the meeting, which was attended by Minister of Finance Rimantas Sadzius and Chairman of the Board of the Bank of Lithuania Vitas Vasiliauskas, it was stated that the euro adoption in Lithuania was excellently coordinated and well organised, euro.lt reports.
"On behalf of the Coordinating Committee on the Euro Adoption in the Republic of Lithuania, I would like to thank all who contributed to adoption of the euro in Lithuania: the business, the state authorities, and the public who successfully without any significant issues took over the new currency. The euro has been circulating in Lithuania for 100 days," said Butkevicius.
The Committee stated that the busiest phase of the currency exchange is over. It has run smoothly and the greater part of the litas that used to be in circulation has been exchanged.
Identified violations related to unfair conversion of prices of goods and services from litas to euro have been decreasing for 6 months in a row. In addition to this, the greatest fear of the public that after adoption of the euro prices of goods and services would go up has not materialised. In first months of the year, Statistics Lithuania recorded a decrease of average retail prices (deflation) of 100 basic homogeneous consumer goods and services in this country.
Thanks to the euro adoption in Lithuania, the country's credit ratings improved, the costs of borrowing and currency exchange decreased. It is estimated that for the first three months the residents, the business, and the public sector saved approximately EUR 8.68 million of the litas-to-euro exchange costs.
