They will only need to contact the Competition Council to report unfair behaviour by online intermediary platforms and search engines, such as disconnection from the platform without warning, non-transparent use of preferential terms or failure to inform them of possible removal from the platform. Such amendments have been submitted to the Seimas for consideration.

"We are increasing the transparency requirements for online intermediary platforms and search engines when they offer their services to businesses. This will help to combat more effectively the unfair practices that intermediary platforms impose on smaller businesses. This will ensure even more effective remedies for businesses," said Aušrinė Armonaitė, Minister of the Economy and Innovation.

The draft law is the result of the implementation of an EU regulation on improving the fairness and transparency of online intermediary services provided to business customers. It provides that the Competition Council will monitor the compliance of online intermediation platforms with the requirements of the EU Regulation and will have the power to impose fines for violations of the EU Regulation.

"It will be easier for small businesses to defend their infringed rights against unfair online platforms. This will encourage small and medium-sized enterprises to be more proactive in making the most of the opportunities offered by online platforms. The appointment of the Competition Council as a supervisory authority will reduce the burden on the courts and make it easier, cheaper and simpler for small businesses to apply to the Competition Council rather than go directly to court to defend their interests," said Ieva Valeškaitė, Deputy Minister of the Economy and Innovation.

The Competition Council will investigate complaints of infringements and impose sanctions, cooperate with the supervisory authorities of other EU Member States, assist them in cross-border investigations and exchange information.

The Competition Council's monitoring of e-marketplaces has shown that at least several dozen providers of online intermediary platform services and internet search engines are operating in Lithuania or providing services to business customers.

https://eimin.lrv.lt/

 

The future duty-free operator will lease and operate in a total of 2,574 sqm of space at the airports in the capital and Kaunas.

Currently, both Vilnius and Kaunas airports have Heinemann Duty Free stores operated by Travel Retail Vilnius.

It is recalled that a total of four international tenders for the selection of leasing partners have been announced or will be announced in 2024. The first one was announced for the operator of an everyday convenience store, and now the selection of a duty-free operator has been announced.

One tender has also already been launched for the selection of a catering operator, which will set up and operate six catering outlets at Vilnius Airport. Later this year, another tender for a catering operator will be launched for the installation and management of three catering facilities.

Strategic infrastructure development

Strategic infrastructure development projects are currently underway at both Vilnius and Kaunas airports: a new departures terminal is being built in Vilnius, the passenger terminal is being reconstructed in Kaunas.

It is estimated that by 2025, these passenger terminal expansion projects will enable Lithuanian airports to handle a 10 million passengers per year.

In 2025, once the construction of Vilnius Airport's new departures terminal is completed and all the systems required for the departures process have been relocated there, reconstruction of the existing space in the current terminal will begin, with the conversion of the existing terminal into commercially viable space.

More information on the conditions of this tender and other tenders announced by Lithuanian Airports can be found at https://tenders.ltou.lt

www.vno.lt

 

"Lithuania is participating in the exhibition as one of the leaders in fintech. We are the largest fintech centre in the EU in terms of the number of licences issued, and we have one of the strongest ecosystems. This exhibition is an opportunity for our companies to establish contacts and expand international partnerships, as well as to showcase Lithuania's potential and attract the world's largest fintech companies to our country," said the Minister of the Economy and Innovation A. Armonaitė.

Lithuania's fintech sector has been growing successfully in recent years. According to the latest Fintech Sector Review, there are currently around 270 fintech companies operating in Lithuania, serving 27 million customers across the EU. The sector employs more than 7,000 people.

Money20/20, one of the largest fintech exhibitions, attracts professionals from all over the world. This year, fintech companies Ondato, DeRISK Business Solutions, Baltic Amadeus, Noviti Finance, Neopay, ConnectPay, European Merchant Bank | EMBank, Paysera will present their fintech solutions at the national stand organised by the Innovation Agency and Rockit. Last year, the exhibition attracted more than 8,000 exhibitors from 50 countries.

https://eimin.lrv.lt/

 

This year's event emphasizes increasing Europe's LNG supply capacity and adapting existing energy infrastructure to meet future energy needs and reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. It also highlights the importance of regional cooperation in developing energy infrastructures suited to new energy sources, such as hydrogen, offshore wind, and biomethane, which will play crucial roles in achieving Europe's climate goals.

"Europe now has two key energy goals: to move rapidly towards climate neutrality and to secure its energy needs and stable supply while minimizing geopolitical risks. Reconciling these objectives requires coordinated action and the development of necessary infrastructure. New challenges and objectives dictate essential changes in the energy system transformation, which we have the opportunity to discuss at the Forum," said Inga Žilienė, Lithuanian Vice-Minister of Energy. The Vice-Minister reviewed the main aspects of the National Energy Independence Strategy, addressing key issues at the event.

To emphasize the importance of new energy sources and the growing industry focus on them, this year's event has been renamed from the Baltic LNG and Gas Forum to the Baltic LNG and New Energies Forum.

"With the climate neutrality deadline looming, Europe and our region need to accelerate energy transformation while ensuring energy security and independence. This requires cooperation between countries, which is a precondition for a stable and assured transition from strategic dependencies and CO2-intensive energy to climate-oriented infrastructure. The Baltic LNG and New Energies Forum is a relevant and timely platform for promoting such cooperation and finding the best solutions, which is particularly relevant to KN Energies as it aims to become climate neutral by 2050," said Darius Šilenskis, CEO of KN Energies.

According to Šilenskis, Lithuania has valuable experience in achieving energy independence, and Klaipėda's role as a regional hub for LNG and terminal services makes the country strategically important for the Baltic region's energy supply chains. It is therefore no coincidence that energy experts and industry representatives are gathering in Klaipėda.

During the Forum, industry experts, company and association representatives, regulators, and decision-makers from various countries gave presentations, commented on case studies, and reviewed the latest trends in the sector.

Topics included the potential of new energy sources, the role of LNG in the green transformation, market forecasts for LNG products, the potential role of Ukraine's gas infrastructure in securing Europe's energy independence, and discussions on technological innovations in energy infrastructure, among others.

https://enmin.lrv.lt/

 

"Last year we received 1.4 million foreign tourists, and this year we expect a quarter more. This new measure is therefore an opportunity for participants in the tourism ecosystem to establish international contacts, implement joint initiatives and at the same time stimulate the growth of the sector," said Aušrinė Armonaitė, Minister of the Economy and Innovation.

Inbound tourism operators and tourism associations operating in Lithuania can apply from 12 June to 12 July this year.

"Presentation of Lithuanian tourism products in foreign markets and participation in international events will not only contribute to the sale of Lithuanian products and projects, but will also help to improve Lithuania's publicity and image at the global level and attract tourists to the country," says Karolis Žemaitis, Deputy Minister of the Economy and Innovation.

Tourism associations must bring together at least 10 tourism service providers offering inbound tourism services. They must also have been established for at least one year.

The main activity of tour operators must be inbound tourism, i.e. revenues from inbound tourism must exceed revenues from other types of tourism or account for more than 55% of revenues. Tour operators must also hold a Tour Operator's Certificate, issued before 1 January 2023, authorising them to carry out the activities of an incoming tourism tour operator.

The applicant may receive funding to participate in a maximum of 3 different events abroad until 31 March 2025. The maximum financial contribution for a project is up to 80% of the costs and the total maximum amount available per applicant is €4,000.

According to data from the first quarter of this year, the number of foreign tourists in 2024 is fast approaching pre-pandemic levels. It is predicted that we will receive around 1.7 million foreign tourists in 2024.

https://eimin.lrv.lt/

 

The declaration was signed by Mr Skuodis together with Dr Volker Wissing, German Federal Minister for Digital Affairs and Transport, and Taku Ishii, Japanese Parliamentary Vice-Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry.

"Every effort to contribute to climate neutrality is important and no technology should be excluded. E-fuels constitute a necessary step towards the decarbonisation of industry and transport. Lithuania, with its large renewable energy potential, should take advantage of its convenient location next to Europe’s major industrial centres by becoming a significant producer of hydrogen and related synthetic fuels. Today's signing of the Berlin e-Fuels Declaration by the three countries is expected to give an even stronger impetus to international cooperation in the development of e-fuels," said Mr Skuodis.

CO₂ nearly neutral e-fuels are becoming increasingly important across all transport modes, including aviation, shipping, logistics. Synthetic fuels, also known as e-fuels or electro fuels, are liquid or gaseous fuels produced from renewable energy sources using chemical technologies.

Wind, hydro and solar energy are already being developed at an accelerating pace in Lithuania, and renewable energy capacity is expected to triple in the near future. By 2030, Lithuania aims to become a 100% green energy country and an exporter of surplus green energy. According to Minister Skuodis, Lithuania has the potential to become a significant player in the production and transport of green fuels in Europe, by producing e-fuels in several strategic companies in the country. It also has plans to increase production capacity to ensure the development of such fuels in the transport sector.

One of the key projects in recent years has been the development of a 100-hectare site in the southern part of the Port of Klaipėda and the creation of an off-shore wind farm to generate green electricity. The Port of Klaipėda is also preparing to develop infrastructure for the production and refuelling of green fuels (hydrogen).

The Declaration highlights the aspirations of Lithuania, Germany and Japan to develop international cooperation and contacts, as well as sharing experience in the development of e-fuel infrastructure. It emphasises the need to promote the production and use of renewable energy-based fuels in all areas of transport, and the efforts to create a regulatory environment conducive to transport innovations.

The document also says that e-fuels produced from renewable energy sources have a key role to play in contributing to both the zero-emission target by 2050 and a competitive, climate-neutral economy. The development of e-fuel production and infrastructure is seen as a promising way to combat climate change.

Currently, the cost of producing synthetic fuels (e-fuels) is still higher than fossil fuels, mainly due to the cost of renewable hydrogen and CO₂ capture technologies.

https://sumin.lrv.lt/

 

"We have taken some bold decisions to improve the performance of the security and defence industry in Lithuania, from facilitating the ability to manufacture our own products for European defence to making it easier to develop major projects. Rheinmetall's ammunition plant and other foreign and Lithuanian companies are already benefiting from these changes. We are open to cooperation and welcoming new potential investors to our country," said the Minister of the Economy and Innovation A. Armonaitė.

Leonardo is a leading global Aerospace, Defence and Security (AD&S) company. It plays an important role in major international strategic programmes and is a trusted technology partner for institutions and companies.

“We are particularly proud of the opportunity given to us by Minister of Economy and Innovation Aušrinė Armonaitė to illustrate Leonardo's technological and production capabilities, both military and civilian, to the Lithuanian government,” Leonardo President Stefano Pontecorvo stressed. “I hope that fruitful cooperation will result from this meeting.”

Leonardo employs over 53,000 people worldwide. Last year, Leonardo generated revenues of €15.3 billion and new orders of €17.9 billion.

The Ministry of the Economy and Innovation is working hard to attract more foreign investment to Lithuania and strengthen the defence and security industry. One of the initiatives is the drafting of amendments to the laws relevant to the Lithuanian defence and security industry, which propose to remove excessive requirements for the development of the sector and to avoid dependence on foreign suppliers by reducing restrictions on the production of armaments.

The Seimas also approved the Ministry's proposal to simplify the procedures related to territorial planning, land parcel formation and construction for large-scale projects aimed at ensuring the urgent needs of national security and defence.

Previously, the indicative timeframe within which the necessary preparatory processes for a large-scale production project to meet the urgent needs of national security and defence could be carried out in Lithuania prior to the start of construction of production facilities was approximately 2-2.5 years. The amendments reduce this period to an estimated six months.

In addition, on the initiative of the Ministry, the restriction on defence activities in Lithuania's free economic zones (FEZs) has been removed. This will encourage companies to expand their activities and create good jobs.

https://eimin.lrv.lt/en/

 

According to Standard & Poor’s methodology, after establishing a positive or negative outlook, the agency has two years to take a decision to upgrade or downgrade the country’s credit rating accordingly. In December 2022, the credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s changed Lithuania’s credit outlook from stable to negative (the ‘A+’ credit rating was granted to our country in February 2020) on the grounds of the protracted war in Ukraine. The adjusted rating of the agency remains in the higher investment rating group.

On Friday,the agency took the same decision for Latvia and Estonia, downgrading their credit ratings to ‘A’ and ‘A+’ respectively, with stable prospects.

“The decision of the credit rating agency was determined by the geopolitical situation in the region due to the ongoing Russian war against Ukraine. Lithuania takes its security seriously: over the past four years, in response to increased risks, we have doubled our defence spending, and we are currently discussing at political level additional sustainable sources of revenue that will allow us to increase defence spending to 3% of GDP”, says Minister of Finance Gintarė Skaistė.

Standard & Poor’s is of the opinion that Russia’s war against Ukraine and geopolitical risks in the region will affect Lithuania’s public finances, economic growth and competitiveness in the medium term. However, they acknowledge that these effects are difficult to predict.

Experts believe that risks will be offset by the accelerating economic recovery due to stronger domestic and foreign demand and continued prudent fiscal policy.

According to Standard & Poor’s analysts, Lithuania’s rating is strengthened by the country’s effective economic policies and membership of the euro area, as well as the low level of public debt. They forecast that the Lithuanian economy should return to growth of 2% this year.

The agency's latest report is available here.

After Standard & Poor’s changed Lithuania’s long-term credit rating, it equalised the ratings granted to our country by two other agencies, Fitch Ratings and Moody’s Investment Service (the values of credit ratings can be found here). Two weeks ago,Fitch Ratings reaffirmed Lithuania’s ‘A’ long-term credit rating granted in January 2020, leaving a stable outlook. In April this year, the same high credit rating – ‘A2’ (stable outlook) – was reaffirmed for Lithuania by credit rating agency Moody’s Investment Service (upgraded in February 2021), ‘A’ (high) with a stable outlook – by credit rating agency DBRS Morningstar (upgraded in November 2021).

More information on Lithuania’s credit ratings is available here.

Additional information:

A credit rating is an indicator that provides investors/creditors with consolidated information on the level of the borrower’s ability to meet its financial obligations. A high credit rating indicates a lower risk of default of the borrower/issuer and, accordingly, lower borrowing costs.

S&P Global Ratingsis part of a group of influential credit rating agencies such as Fitch Ratings and Moody’s Investors Service. They use certain classification and symbols to express credit ratings and to determine the credit value for borrowing countries and companies by using standardised credit ratings.

https://finmin.lrv.lt/

"We need to help businesses to act, so it is important that business supervision is based on working with businesses and helping them, rather than punishing them. Continuous evaluation of supervisors' performance, training and mentoring of supervisors' staff are some of the measures that lead to effective supervision that meets high standards, improves the business environment and reduces the burden of supervision on businesses. However, there are still areas where we need to improve supervision in order to give businesses every opportunity to grow," said Aušrinė Armonaitė, Minister of the Economy and Innovation.

According to the survey, 54% of businesses rated the performance of the supervisory authorities in 2023 as very good or good. Last year, medium-sized enterprises were the most frequently inspected (52%). Comparing the share of inspections by the length of time a business has been in operation, the likelihood of being inspected increases with the length of operation. Businesses operating for less than 1 year, known as new entrants, were the least likely to be inspected.

"We see that the authorities have improved their performance in recent years by finding effective ways of providing information and expanding their advisory tools. We also see where more efforts should be made - businesses should be informed about inspections in advance, and it is important to use questionnaires so that businesses can prepare for inspections," said Ieva Valeškaitė, Deputy Minister of the Economy and Innovation.

In 2023, 89% of inspections were planned, 8% were unplanned and 3% required authorisation. 88.9% of authorities give advance notice of an inspection. 70% of inspections were carried out by questionnaire. However, 41.4% of companies reported that inspections included additional checks for compliance with other requirements not covered by the questionnaire. This created difficulties for businesses as they could not adequately prepare for the inspection and manage the risks arising from the consequences of the inspection.

In 2023, 34.5% of inspections found non-compliance with legal requirements. In 96% of cases, the inspectorate informed the business of the breach, the sanctions imposed and how the breach could be rectified. Regarding the level of awareness among enterprises of the supervisory measures implemented and applied, almost half of the enterprises (48.2%) had to contact a supervisory authority for advice on legislation, licensing requirements or other services.

75.1% of enterprises received clear and comprehensive answers to their questions. Large enterprises (29.4% did not receive a clear answer) and enterprises operating for less than 1 year (35.4%) reported receiving the lowest quality of advice.

Businesses also made suggestions for improving the work of the regulators: they said that the information should be clearer, in simpler language and accompanied by an explanation of the guidelines. It was also suggested that the information should be systematised in one place, tailored to the specific cases of enterprises and regularly updated on the website. Business representatives expressed the expectation that regulators would help them to improve their practices, rather than inspecting to punish.

In order to improve business supervision, the Ministry of the Economy and Innovation organises annual initiatives to this end, with more than 2,200 professionals from more than 40 supervisory authorities being trained in consultancy, the basics of the business supervision system or risk assessment in the period 2023-2024. Inspection performance is also assessed through the Supervisory Inspection Survey Instrument (SISI), which is used by 19 authorities. In addition, advice is provided, methodological material is produced and a Supervisory Performance Assessment Scoreboard is published to assess the quality of supervisory performance.

The Ministry has also supported the formation of an association of supervisors. The members of this association share best practices and knowledge and seek innovative and efficient solutions for supervision.

https://eimin.lrv.lt/

 

"The technological breakthrough is rapidly changing the way business service centres operate, so we are giving them the opportunity to modernise and innovate. This is an important prerequisite for increasing work efficiency, and the introduction of robotics or artificial intelligence solutions will save time for the employees of these centres to perform other value-adding tasks," said Aušrinė Armonaitė, Minister of the Economy and Innovation.

Business service centres can receive up to €200,000 and up to 50% of the total project costs. Both Lithuanian and foreign companies registered in Lithuania are eligible to apply.

The projects will be implemented by selected promoters - business service centres. They will be able to use the funding to design and develop robotic process automation and artificial intelligence solutions.

"With this investment, business service centres will be able to automate management and operational processes such as sales or marketing, accounting, recruitment, finance and bookkeeping. This will not only allow them to move faster in improving business processes, but will also give them a competitive advantage," said Erika Kuročkina, Deputy Minister of the Economy and Innovation.

Project implementation plans will be accepted by the Central Project Management Agency (CPMA) until 28 June.

The full terms and conditions of the measure are available on the European Union Investment website.

The measure is implemented within the framework of the Economic Recovery and Resilience Plan "Next Generation Lithuania", funded by the European Union's NextGenerationEU programme.

https://eimin.lrv.lt/