Karolis Žemaitis, Deputy Minister of the Economy and Innovation, met with representatives of Fanuc, a Japanese manufacturer of industrial robots and digital control systems, on Tuesday and presented the business ecosystem in Lithuania and invited the Japanese company to invest in our country.

Lithuanian energy companies and organisations have already provided specialised support for the repair and reconstruction of Ukraine’s energy sector for almost EUR 3 million. A further EUR 2 million support for the war-affected energy sector of Ukraine is currently being organised.

Aviation growth continues to rapidly catch up with the pre-pandemic (2019) results, with nearly 90% of passenger traffic and 80% of flight traffic restored this October. Last month, 548 000 passengers travelled through Lithuanian airports, 4 713 flights were handled, and cargo volumes grew. Kaunas Airport continues to demonstrate an exceptional rate of recovery and has outperformed some of the indicators for the same month in 2019.

Seimas approved amendments to the Law on Companies drafted by the Ministry of the Economy and Innovation, which will substantially improve the conditions for growing companies to attract investment, encourage the use of digital tools in decision-making and enable shareholders, small ones in particular, to exercise their rights.

Lithuania joins the international initiative to promote the target of zero emissions of medium and heavy-duty vehicles and related infrastructure. This was set out in the International Memorandum of Understanding initiated by the Kingdom of the Netherlands and signed in Lithuania by the Minister of Transport and Communications Marius Skuodis during the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27) in Egypt.

On Thursday, MEPs approved nearly €720 million in EU Solidarity Fund aid following natural disasters in seven EU countries in 2021.

In accordance with the recommendations of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the Bank of Lithuania has published the data on annual foreign direct investment (FDI) for 2021 by the ultimate investing country. Redistribution of the accumulated FDI by ownership structure allows to determine the ultimate investing country that controls the direction of investment and bears the risk, as well as identify round-trip investment. Round-tripping is when the capital that has been channelled abroad by resident investors is returned to the domestic economy as reinvestment in the form of FDI. This investment does not provide the typical benefit of FDI to the country, since in most cases tax benefits of both other countries and the resident country are utilised.

Parliament wants new EU rules to ensure companies are held accountable when their actions harm people and the planet.

Compared to August, the deficit on the current account balance (CAB) slightly narrowed (3.7%) to €276.2 million. This was due to an increase in the services surplus and a narrowing of the primary income deficit, which offset a significant widening of the foreign trade deficit. Exports of services, which increased by 11.0% more than imports (5.1%), contributed 23.4% to the services surplus, amounting to €533.0 million. The foreign trade deficit widened by 26.6% to €705.0 million, driven by an increase in goods imports outpacing goods exports (by 2.3% and 5.2% respectively). The primary income deficit decreased by 34.2% to €120.0 million;

Lithuania officially opened its trade representative office in Taipei on Monday. It is headed by Paulius Lukauskas, who won a tender launched by the Ministry of the Economy and Innovation. The Lithuanian Trade Representative has been working in Taipei for almost two months.