According to the data published by European Travel Commission (ETC) unifying 33 European national tourism associations, Lithuania is one of the leaders among European countries indicating growth of tourist flow and number of accomodations.

Ladies and gentlemen,

Nasdaq OMX Vilnius and its team with Baltic Institute of Corporate Governance was a source of inspiration to start reform on state owned enterprises. Listed companies are role model on how to implement transparency and high standards of disclosure for each SOE. As these companies by their nature are most public – owned by all citizens of Lithuania.

Milda Dargužaitė starts her new role as Managing Director of Invest Lithuania, a public body subordinate to the Ministry of Economy of the Republic of Lithuania. Ms Dargužaitė returned to Lithuania in June 2011 after seventeen years in the United States of America, where she was Vice President at Goldman Sachs, the Investment Banking and Securities firm in New York.

The Ministry of Economy signed a memorandum with the Lithuanian State Department of Tourism and the municipalities of resorts and the largest cities of Lithuania, aimed to consolidate the idea to establish the National Conference Bureau in 2012. The Memorandum concerning the establishment of the Conference Bureau was signed by the municipalities of Vilnius, Kaunas, Druskininkai, Birštonas and Neringa.

Ryanair, the Irish airline, plans to establish an aircraft technical maintenance centre at Kaunas Airport by investing over LTL 12 million. The project, which is expected to offer up to 60 new jobs and will receive LTL 4.143 million in the European Union’s structural funding, is due to start in 2012.

On 10 November 2011, the Ministry of Economy of the Republic of Lithuania, aiming to promote innovation and R&D development and application in business, hosted an International Innovation Conference “Clustering – Window to Global Competitiveness“. The Conference was dedicated to the promotion of innovative clusters as important eco-systems since they offer a favourable business environment that stimulates and encourages competitiveness, innovation and growth.

The strategic economic objective of Lithuania is transformation from exporting labour force and low value added products to creation and exporting high value added products. This objective will be pursued in line with implementing major investment projects laying strong foundation for economic welfare of Lithuania.

The World Bank’s Doing Business Report which was announced yesterday demonstrates that Lithuania ranks 9 and remains among the EU Member States that are most favourable for business. In the ranking tables, Lithuania has overtaken Belgium, France, Portugal, the Netherlands, Austria and other EU Member States. Higher ranking was given to Denmark, United Kingdom, Finland, Sweden, Germany, Latvia and Estonia. In the general rating of the countries of the world, Lithuania ranks 27 out of 183.

Another 34 business control bodies have joined nine major controlling agencies and committed to actively render consultations and assistance to business entities during their first year of operation and help them follow legislation requirements rather than impose fines on them. 43 (which makes the majority) business control agencies out of nearly 60 functioning in Lithuania have declared their wish to create a more business-friendly environment. The Declaration was signed by all major business control bodies.

Systemic changes and public finance consolidation is to be complemented by substantially increased returns from State-Owned entities (SOE’s) in Year 2012 and behind. All this provide with the solid setting for year 2012 fiscal deficit target of 2.8 percent GDP - half of that foreseen for 2011.