The Swedish companies are expected to increase investments in high value-added sectors in Lithuania
During a remote meeting with Swedish Minister of EnterpriseIbrahim Baylan, Minister of Economy and Innovation Aušrinė Armonaitė discussed how to encourage business to recover from the crisis caused by the pandemic, improve the management of state-owned enterprises, and draw attention to the country’s business concerns.
“Foreign direct investment and a favorable environment are one of our top priorities, and Sweden is the largest investor. I would like to invite Swedish companies to further increase investment in our country and to discover new opportunities in high value-added sectors such as the engineering industry, pharmaceuticals, medical equipment manufacturing, information and communication technologies and financial services. This will further expand mutual economic ties, will let Swedish entrepreneurs to exploit the potential of our skilled workforce, and provide new jobs for our people,” said Minister of Economy and Innovation A. Armonaitė.
She emphasized that Sweden is mentioned as an example of good practice in centralizing state-owned enterprises, and in Lithuania we still have to make efforts to manage state-owned enterprises more effectively, review their goals, improve their operations, transparency and return to the state. The Swedish experience would help to achieve this faster.
One of the most important goals of Lithuanian innovation policy is to unite all innovation policy and financing institutions under one roof, to create an effective financing program. There was a discussion how the state can act as an intermediary between science and business to accelerate an innovation-based economy.
The Lithuanian and Swedish ministers discussed the implementation of the Harmony Link project, a planned cross-border electricity connection between Lithuania and Poland, which is a very important part of the synchronization of the Baltic electricity networks with mainland Europe. The connection will be built in Sweden’s exclusive economic zone. There was also talk of a new taxpayer registration system that is important for Lithuanian drivers working in Sweden.
