"If we want to stimulate innovation, increase competitiveness and build a more efficient economy, we need to take immediate action to make the desired progress. That is why we are initiating changes to the way innovative company status is granted to companies. This will free them from excessive bureaucracy, make administration more convenient and faster, and give them more opportunities to benefit from incentives," said Lukas Savickas, Minister of the Economy and Innovation.
Granting companies the status of Innovative Enterprise is a vote of confidence in our country's innovators, as it will open the way to faster recognition of innovative activities and identification of research and experimental development activities. This would allow them to benefit from the corporate tax relief available under the current regime.
In addition, many national and EU support programmes give priority to innovative companies. This status also enhances the company's image among partners or investors, which can help attract talent and foster cooperation with research institutions.
According to the Minister L. Savickas, the aim is also to enable the Innovation Agency to more actively promote the export of large technological and innovative companies, to better monitor their activities and to make proposals to the Ministry on how to increase the internationalisation of these companies. This will help companies to diversify their markets.
"Our goal is to accelerate the transition of Lithuania's export structure towards high value-added by consistently growing internationally competitive Lithuanian exporters so that their turnover continues to grow and reaches hundreds of millions of euros," the minister said.
Currently, export incentives are targeted only at small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), but the SME thresholds are relatively low, so the state has cut off support for companies with significant growth potential. This leads to the paradoxical situation that such companies receive less attention from the state and are excluded from the available instruments. These amendments therefore aim to strengthen the state's ability to contribute to the export promotion of such companies by opening up new markets for them.
By including large companies in the export promotion system, the Innovation Agency will be able to make a greater contribution to Lithuania's strategic goal of reorienting exports towards high technology, both in terms of scope and impact.
The amendments to the Law on Technology and Innovation have been submitted to the relevant institutions for approval.
