Parliament and Council negotiators agreed on Tuesday evening to ease existing restrictions on the use of vans or tucks without drivers hired from another EU country.

The European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency (CINEA), joint venture of the Baltic States RB Rail AS, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications of Estonia, the Ministry of Transport of Latvia and the Ministry of Transport and Communications of Lithuania signed additional cross-border Grant Agreement on the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) funding for Rail Baltica. The total budget of the Agreement is 19.7 million euros, of which the CEF contribution will be of a maximum amount of 16.7 million euros or 85% of total eligible costs under this agreement. The remaining 15% will be financed by the governments of the Baltic States.

In order to ensure and expand Lithuania’s communication by air transport with target markets crucial to its economic growth, the Ministry of Transport and Communications launched the preparation of a business plan for strategic destination flights. SE Lithuanian airports, acting under the authority of the Ministry of Transport and Communications, announced an open international public tender.

Minister of Finance Gintarė Skaistė met with Mr. Bo Li, Deputy Managing Director at the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The focus of the meeting was the deepening of cooperation between Lithuania and the IMF. During the meeting Minister G. Skaistė and Deputy Managing Director of the IMF B. Li discussed the current affairs of the IMF, global and Lithuanian economic situation as well as the Fund’s role during the pandemic period, the institution’s activities in the field of digital finance and Fintech.

On Thursday, a two-day International Transport and Innovation Forum “Transport and Logistics 2050” begins in Vilnius for the third time. It is organised by the Ministry of Transport and Communications and the Association of Transport Innovations. The latest tendencies, innovations and novelties in the sector will be discussed with the ministers of transport of Armenia, Latvia and Poland, representatives of OECD and EC, and heads of global companies of the transport sector.

The Bank of Lithuania published the peer-to-peer (P2P) insurance guidelines, which present its assessments, insights and recommendations on InsurTech financial innovations to the financial market, potential providers of P2P insurance services and consumers.

The Bank of Lithuania published the balance of payments for August 2021, which shows that:

The hybrid annual meeting of the Boards of Governors of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB) took place on 14-17 October. This year’s meetings focused on discussions on further steps to contain the pandemic, including acceleration of vaccination processes and assistance to developing and emerging market countries, global economic situation and its transformation towards a more inclusive, green and digital economy.

After Lithuania achieved a breakthrough in the financial technology (Fintech) sector over the last few years− it is natural that the volume of risks increases, therefore, according to Minister of Finance Gintarė Skaistė, it is very important for market participants and institutions to discuss and find common solutions to the challenges that arise. The Minister spoke about it today at the Baltic Money Laundering Prevention Forum (Baltic AML Forum) organised by UAB Verslo Žinios, financial technology company Bankera and law firm LEADELL.

In September of this year, Lithuanian Airports have served 326 thousand passengers. That is more than three times as much as it was last year in the first month of autumn (100 thousand passengers), that is, about half of the passenger traffic that was in 2019 before the pandemic began, when, in September, 603 thousand passengers were carried by air.