Experts from Lithuania and Belarus who are meeting in Vilnius continue to have diverging views on the security of a nuclear power plant being built by Belarus in Astravyets close to its border with Lithuania and little success has been achieved so far in trying to reach a consensus on many issues.

Non-residents held 71.9% of total government debt in Latvia in 2015, which is the sixth largest share in the EU, according to the Eurostat information. Lithuania’s share was even third.

Lietuvos Gelezinkeliai (Lithuanian Railways) handled a total of 19.46 million tons of freight during the first five months of the year 2016, up 2.8% year-on-year, preliminary data from Statistics Lithuania showed on June 21st.

Residential property prices in Lithuania climbed by 0.8% in the first quarter of 2016 from the previous quarter, data from Statistics Lithuania showed on June 20th.

The unlawful cigarette market in Lithuania is declining, however, still remains among the biggest in Europe, according to the latest study by the international audit, tax and consulting company KPMG. Lithuania remains 4th after Latvia, Norway and Greece.

Searches were conducted at the Lithuanian port of Klaipeda on June 16th evening in the framework of a corruption probe, a high-ranking employee of the port and a Latvian citizen were detained.

Yesterday about 300 people gathered in a protest action organized by Lithuanian trade unions against the new Labor Code, which critics say will narrow the social benefits for employees.

President Dalia Grybauskaitė met with European Commissioner for Internal Market Elżbieta Bieńkowska, who actively contributed to drafting a joint communication by the European Commission on countering hybrid threats. The communication also identifies nuclear safety violations in the EU neighborhood as a threat to European security.

SEB Bankas in the end of the first quarter of 2016 was the number-one bank in Lithuania by assets and loans and Swedbank led the market in terms of deposits, consolidated figures from the central Bank of Lithuania showed on June 14th.