NEWSLETTER JUNE 2013

With good news from Lithuania!

EMBASSY OF LITHUANIA, NEW DELHI

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LEGENDARY MAHASHAY DHARAMPAL JI WELCOMED AT THE EMBASSY OF LITHUANIA

Legendary Mahashay Dharampal, owner and the face of the multi-crore Indian company MDH Spices, was received in the Embassy of Lithuania.

“It is a great honor for us to welcome a man who per-sonifies all aspects of India: its dramatic past, its unbroken commitment to hard work and human dignity, and its vast opportunities that will ensure India a very prosperous futu-re,” Ambassador Laimonas Talat-Kelpša said.

The 90-years old businessman is well known across all of India for his spectacular life story, which also features him arriving to New Delhi after the Partition with only 1500 ru-pees in his pocket. Today MDH is a top Indian spice brand, exported to many different destinations in the world.

The possibilities of establishing closer links with Lithuania were also discussed. Lithuania is a most convenient transit hub for exporters to the Baltic Sea Region, with close access to the Nordic, Central European and Russian markets. Trade between India and Lithuania is only starting to develop, with bilateral trade turnover reaching EUR 50 million in 2012.

MDH Spices is also involved in charitable activities and runs around 20 schools and a hospital in India.

LITHUANIA - SECOND FASTEST GROWING ECONOMY IN THE EU

In Q1 of 2013, as compared to the same period of the last year, Lithuanian economy demonstrated second fast-est growth rate in the whole European Union, www.delfi.lt writes.

On 15 May, Eurostat has published a flash estimate of the GDP growth rates among EU member states in the first quarter of 2013. Lithuania’s GDP grew by 4,1%, yielding only to the neighbouring Latvia which demonstrated a 5,6 % growth. Estonia’s economy came fourth among EU member states with a 1,2% GDP growth.

The most significant GDP slump was registered in Greece (-5.3 %), Cyprus (-4.1 %) and Portugal (-3.9 %).

The entire GDP of the EU has decreased by 0.7 %, while that of the eurozone stood at one per cent.

Full text at http://en.delfi.lt/38061/lithuania-has-almost-be-come-the-leader-in-gdp-growth-in-the-eu-201338061/

NEW AIRLINE TO OPERATE FROM VILNIUS

Air Lituanica, an airline company controlled by the local authority of Vilnius and private investors, plans to launch operations in late June with a flight to Brussels and hopes to generate 40 million litas (EUR 11.6m) in revenues by the end of the year.

Simonas Bartkus, the company’s director of commerce, said at the news conference that Air Lituanica planned to of-fer direct flights to six destinations and carry around 70,000 passengers this year.

Flights to Brussels will be launched on June 30 and on July 8, the company will add Amsterdam to its flight schedule, he says adding that later the company would roll out flights to Berlin, Prague, Munich and Moscow.

The carrier will operate two aircrafts – a 76-seat Embraer 170 and an 86-seat Embraer 175. One aircraft will be leased from an Embraer subsidiary and another one, from Estonian Air. Both aircrafts should be delivered to the airport of Vil-nius late in June.

The local authority of Vilnius owns 83 percent of shares in Air Lituanica through the company Start Vilnius. Air Lituanica Club, which groups private investors, holds the re-maining 17 percent.

Full text at www.15min.lt/en/article/business/vilnius-mayor-s-pet-project-air-lituanica-to-take-to-skies-with-flight-to-brussels-in-june-527-335804#ixzz2VqrthG3V

SUCCESSFUL START FOR LITHUANIAN CHOCOLATE IN CHENNAI

Lithuanian chocolate had its debut in India at Chennai „India Bakery Expo‘2013“ on May 18-20. The visitors were surprised at high quality and superb taste of Lithuanian chocolate and sweets produced by two Lithuanian factories – “Vilniaus Pergalė” and “Šiaulių Rūta”. The sweet exhibits were presented in Chennai by the Indian – Baltic Chamber of Commerce which has embarked on a journey of pre-senting the Lithuanian products to the Indian importers. Lithuania is famous for high quality chocolate, especially dark one. Today it’s producers are very creative in presen-ting their products which can take a shape of chocolate pi-zza or sweetened berries coated with sugar – a true delight not only to palate but also to the eyes.

FIRST LITHUANIAN WOMAN TO CLIMB MOUNT EVEREST

She did it! Just as the Embassy of Lithuania in India was welcoming Lithuanian mountaineering legend VladasVit-kauskas in New Delhi to celebrate his 20th anniversary of ascent of Mt. Everest, the news came in that Edita Uksaitė Nichols, the first Lithuanian woman, reached the top of the world, from the North side, no less. Congratulations, Edita, we are very proud of you!

FIRST LITHUANIAN BUSINESS REPRESENTATION OPENED IN INDIA

On May 23, the Indian -Baltic Chamber of Commerce (IBCC) inaugurated its branch office in Gurgaon.

„This is the first Lithuanian business office in India“ – Ambassador LaimonasTalat-Kelpša of Lithuania said at the opening. – „We hope that it will help other Lithuania com-panies to open doors to the Indian market“.

Gediminas Citukas, Director of the Indian – Baltic Chamber of Commerce, told guests about the first pro-jects of the branch office. One of them is the presentation of Lithuanian chocolate to Indian importers and wholesale companies which was organized at Chennai Bakery Expo on May 18-21.

The Indian – Baltic Chamber of Commerce was esta-blished in 2009 in order to assist Lithuanian and Indian businessmen in establishing business ties. Together with the Embassy of Lithuania in Delhi IBCC has arranged four Lithuanian business missions to India. In December 2012, IBCC signed an agreement with the Indian company „In-dia Buying Consultants“ regarding the establishment of the IBCC representative office in India. As per terms of this agreement, „India Buying Consultants“ has become the official representative of IBCC and will be responsible for finding clients for the IBCC in India.

LITHUANIA TO BECOME GLOBAL HUB OF MOLECULAR BIOLOGY

Verslo Žinios Daily correspondent Gintautas Degutis talks to Greg Herreman, President Biosciences Division at Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc.

U.S. company Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., which acqu-ired Lithuanian UAB Fermentas in 2010, projects Lithua-nian capital city of Vilnius as a global center of molecular biology. Projects and people relocate to Thermo Fisher’s new regional headquarters in Vilnius, where new plans for the future are being developed.

The company’s executives do not reveal how much they are actually going to invest in Lithuania; however, they claim Vilnius branch will help them reach a $20 billion an-nual income level by 2020. Last year, the company’s reve-nue was $12 billion. Vilnius branch will have an important role to play: Thermo Fisher Scientific wants to develop its

Lithuanian leg as a global hub of molecular biology and from there expand into neighboring Latvia and Estonia.

- What is the purpose of your visit to Lithuania?- In Lithuania, we have invested a considerable amount

of money: $260 million for the acquisition of UAB Fer-mentas, as well as more than $13 million for the new office building in Vilnius. We want to make sure that all the work related to these investments is carried out properly. One can say that my purpose of coming here is to see how our overseas business is doing and how the invested money is spent.

In addition, we have moved a number of projects from other countries to Vilnius in recent years. In the United States and Europe we have had several smaller units, which were producing rea-gents for molecular biology. To be efficient, we decided to consolidate our research and development (R&D) and production activities here in Vilnius. Therefore, I wanted to see how things are going and how all the restructuring is moving.

I also met with represen-tatives of our key partners from Santariškių Clinics, Vil-nius University, Kaunas University of Technology and the Lithuanian University of Health Sciences, as well as with the U.S. ambassador and the Prime Minister of Lithuania.

- And what is your personal impression of our new Pri-me Minister? Have you noticed any changes as compared to his predecessor, who was the head of the government du-ring your acquisition deal with UAB Fermentas?

- From the outset, we have been confident about Lithu-ania’s economic stability.The governments, both past and present, have been supportive of our goals. We also see that the government is committed to long-term strategic goals. The prime minister has reassured us that the production of high value-added goods and services remains a national priority. All this creates a supportive investment environ-ment.

For us, good relations with the government are very important. We want to maintain them, especially since we plan further expansion. We own approximately 6 acres (2.4 hectares) of additional land around our current building, so we have where to grow. During the meeting with the pri-me minister I mentioned three things: our satisfaction with the present cooperation, our intention to continue inves-ting in Lithuania, and our hope that Lithuania will sustain its positive investment environment.

- Tell us more about your future plans in Lithuania.- At present, the concrete development projects are still

not available. We have just completed the construction of our new facility and have not even moved to the new pre-mises. However, the company’s long-term strategy provides

for expansion of our units in Lithuania and other emerging markets. We would like to concentrate our R&D activities and reagent production capacities in Vilnius. From here, our products are already exported worldwide.

We are very pleased with the investment in Lithuania, with the pace how this project develops, and with the ac-tivities of our Vilnius branch in general. Here we have a strong management team working with local professionals. AlgimantasMarkauskas this year was selected as the Best Business Leader in Lithuania. Both the company and the public value the work of our Vilnius branch and appreciate its potential.

- You have mentioned that you are satisfied with the Lithuanian biotechnology professionals. Are you not afraid that with your expan-sion the talent pool will soon be depleted? Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. is not the only biotech company operating in Lithuania. Moreover, we live in a Europe where bor-ders do not exist, and Lithu-ania already suffers from vast emigration.The number of young professionals that

local universities produce is also quite limited.- We have not faced the lack of talents yet. We work clo-

sely with Vilnius University. They supply us with promising young professionals.

We are also visiting schools. Together with Vilnius Uni-versity we have developed a mobile laboratory which we take on a roadshow all over the country to demonstrate the students what we produce, thus trying to get them interes-ted in life sciences.

In addition, our Vilnius branch managers are successful in sustaining human resources. The staff turnover in the company is very small. Our employees are not leaving us after being trained by our specialists; we have no problems with that. The issue of costs also matters a lot. One has to admit that labor costs in Lithuania are much lower than in Western Europe or the United States. Thus, we can have equally talented people and a superb business environment at a lower cost. We created 84 new jobs in Lithuania last year alone. Now Vilnius branch of Thermo Fisher Scientific employs over 440 people, of which almost 100 work at the Research and Development Center.

- It is reported that Thermo Fisher’s Lithuanian branch is becoming a center of excellence. What does this mean in practice?

- Our company has about 300 offices around the world. A small number of them we plan to turn into regional hubs, possessing the critical mass of knowledge and competence. For example, our Vilnius branch will focus on life scien-ces and the production of relevant reagents. In the future these regional hubs will serve as our expansion platforms,

Embassy of the Republic of Lithuania in the Republic of IndiaC-93, Anand Niketan, New Delhi 110021

Tel. (+91 11) 43132200, Fax. (+91 11) 43132222, http://in.mfa.lt

providing the necessary human resource and attracting the largest share of our investments.

Last year we opened two such centers of excellence:an analytical center in Boston (USA) and Life Sciences Centre in Vilnius, which deals with research and manufacturing of reagents. At present, Thermo Fisher possesses a total of 25 such centers of excellence.

Source: Verslo Žinios Daily, 28 May 2013, unofficial and abrid-ged translation.

LITHUANIA ON TRACK TO OPEN ACCESSION TALKS WITH THE ORGANISATION FOR

ECONOMIC COOPERATION AND DEVELOPMEN

On 30 May, the OECD Ministerial Council meeting an-nounced its decision on the next phase of the enlargement of the organization’s next phase of the enlargement - Li-thuania is among other four candidate countries invited to start accession talks.

In 2013, the OECD plans to open talks with Colombia, with other countries mentioned in the document - Latvia, Lithuania, and Costa Rica – to gradually join the process in the near future.

LITHUANIA FACES RECORD LEGISLATIVE LOAD FOR EU PRESIDENCY

EUobserver, June 5, 2013

Lithuania, a country of three million people bordering Poland, Latvia, Belarus and the Russian enclave of Kalinin-grad, will take over the rotating EU presidency on 1 July.

“Our main priorities will reflect the situation in Europe’s economy,” Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite told this website.

“We inherited a lot of issues. About 80 percent of our agenda will be mainly questions about the European eco-nomy, the European level of integration, growth and jobs and the free trade agreement with the US,” she added.

A record 563 dossiers are currently in the legislative pi-peline and have to be managed by the Lithuanian presiden-cy. The next EU budget for 2014-2020 requires 75 separate bills alone to come into force as planned on 1 January.

With European elections scheduled in May 2014, most legislation has to be adopted during the second half of this year, as the European Parliament will have only three months left to work next year.

“Since the Lisbon Treaty was adopted, no EU presidency has had that many dossiers on their table. We tripled our staff in Brussels, we now have some 200 people there, not only diplomats, also special attaches who are experts on va-rious files, coming from the respective ministries,” deputy foreign minister Vytautas Leskevicius said.

In addition to all of this, the ‘Lithuanian flavour’ of the EU presidency will be Eastern Partnership, the Baltic Sea Strategy and external borders.

Through the Eastern Partnership, the EU is seeking clo-ser relations and ultimately visa-free travel and free trade with Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and, in the more distant future, Lithuania’s neighbour Be-larus.

Lithuania will host an Eastern Partnership summit in November.

See full text at: http://euobserver.com/lithuania/120299