The Bank of Lithuania together with the Competition Council of the Republic of Lithuania sees opportunities for improvement of small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) financing and proposes solutions. The interested parties are invited to present their opinions on the study conducted by the Bank of Lithuania and the Competition Council and the recommendations prepared on the basis of a comprehensive analysis.

Minister of Transport and Communications Marius Skuodis had visited Šiauliai and stressed the great economic potential that Šiauliai Airport, which is currently under reconstruction, offers for the city and the region. According to the Minister, while preparing the long-term Lithuanian air transport development and expansion guidelines, it is planned to assess the role of this airport within the country’s air transport system.

To improve the quality of aircraft service and make it more environmentally friendly, Vilnius Airport is planning the construction of an automated aircraft de-icing recycling plant in 2022. Lithuanian Airports announce a public procurement tender for the design of the plant, building contracting, and the installation of the necessary technological equipment. Once the planned works have been completed, the aircraft are expected to be serviced based on advanced sustainability requirements, making the process faster and safer.

Accelerating vaccination programs in many countries and easing travel conditions promote a fast recovery of civil aviation. Comparted to July of the previous year, passenger traffic in the same period at Lithuanian Airports increased almost twice, meanwhile the number of performed flights was higher by 32 percent than year ago. In July, Lithuanian Airports handled more than 324 thousand passengers and this number amounts to 40 percent of the whole passenger traffic in 2021.

Starting from Autumn, six new routes will become available at Vilnius and Kaunas airports. Ryanair will serve two new routes from Vilnius and four new routes from Kaunas.

Minister of Transport and Communications Marius Skuodis presented the reform of the Road Maintenance and Development Programme (RMDP) to the Mayors of the Region’s municipalities. It will ensure clear, transparent and comprehensible allocation of funds to municipalities and allow increasing funding to municipal roads of local significance. The implementation of the Rail Baltica project, which is significant to the region, was also discussed at the meeting, as well as the infrastructure improvement issues relevant to the municipalities.

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

Wizz Air, Europe’s fastest growing and greenest airline announced today the allocation of a third aircraft to its Vilnius base. The new Airbus A320 will join the fleet on December 2021, enabling the start of 2 new routes from Vilnius to Reykjavik in Iceland and Yerevan in Armenia as well as the increase of frequencies of the airline’s existing routes to London Luton, Dortmund and Oslo. The new low fare routes are already on sale on www.wizzair.com and via WIZZ mobile app with fares starting as low as EUR 29.99*.

Minister of Transport and Communications Marius Skuodis notes that the reconstruction of Via Baltica section from Marijampolė to the Polish border, which is one of the most intensively used highways in the country, is to begin next year, and the reconstruction should be completed by the end of 2024. The reconstruction plan of the highway and the stages of the planned works were presented today in Marijampolė at a meeting with the region’s municipal representatives, business community and society.

A festive event in Vilnius on 22 July Thursday evening marked Lithuania’s long-term partnership with Iceland, Lichtenstein and Norway: the donor countries under the EEA’s and Norway’s Financial Mechanism.