Latvia Transport Minister Anrijs Matiss said: “I want to emphasise that the greatest beneficiaries of this project will be the Latvian, Lithuanian and Estonian citizens, who will be able to easily travel to any Baltic country and other destinations in Europe in the near future.”

Two representatives from each country of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania have been appointed to the board of RB Rail – Anti Moppel for Estonia is chairman of the board, Ugis Magonis representing Latvia and Dainius Budyrs Lithuania. They will oversee the design, construction and marketing of the new 728km long railway line which will enable trains to travel at speeds not exceeding 240km/h achieving travel times of Tallinn to the Lithuanian-Polish border of about 4 hours.

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Gazprom is one of the world’s largest suppliers of natural gas and provides the gas needs of a quarter of Europe. The European Commission has been investigating the supply giant since 2012 for suspected the anti-completive practices of overcharging customers and blocking rival supply companies. The minister of energy stated that Gazprom’s supplying to Lietuvos Dujos at such inflated prices, higher than Latvia, Estonia and Germany were being charged, was harmful to Lithuania’s consumers, the economy and Leituvos Dujos as a company.

A previous case filed by the Lithuanian government against Gazprom before the international arbitration court in Stockholm, is demanding compensation of 5 billion Lithuanian litas ($2 billion) for previous pricing. The new arbitration initiative will hopefully speed up talks with Gazprom to finally achieve a discount. Gazprom stated that Leituvos Dujos agreed to pay prices based on a formula that is linked to oil pricing and that it would not change its pricing practices in Eastern Europe in spite of regulatory pressure. The current sale agreement is in place until the end of 2015. The Gazprom said in September it could reduce prices if Lithuania signed a “comprehensive agreement” and withdrew the existing claim from the Stockholm court. Lithuania plans to erect a liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal at end of 2014, and its top power utility Lietuvos Energija expects to start importing LNG in 2015.

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To promote the development of the Baltic textile industry and to expand it to the international markets, the International Exhibition Company BT 1, the organisers of the Lithuanian textile fair “Baltic Textile & Leather” and the textile industry associations of Latvia and Lithuania have reached an agreement that, as of 2014, there will be one competitive fashion and textile industry fair “Baltic Fashion & Textile” rotating between venues in Riga (spring) and Vilnius (autumn).

The 19th International Textile Industry Fair “Baltic Fashion & Textile RIGA 2014” will take place from 4‒6 April at the Kipsala International Exhibition Centre, Riga, offering a vast exhibition, fashion shows, conferences and business-to-business matchmaking and the International Competition for Young Fashion Designers “Habitus Baltija 2014”. The fair will bring together the most competitive manufacturers, distributors and designers offering an international communication and business platform for the fashion and textile professionals in the Baltic States, Scandinavia, Russia and the CIS.

One common fair for the Baltic countries opens up new opportunities to promote more ambitiously the Baltic fashion and textile products, creative potential, enhance product competitiveness and expand sales into new markets across the Baltic States, the EU, Scandinavia, Russia and the CIS.

“Baltic Fashion & Textile Riga 2014” will introduce the new season collections, supplies and equipment, home textiles, innovative textiles, technical textiles, fashion accessories, designer recycled clothing collections, as well as it will offer a daily programme of fashion shows of the latest spring / summer ready-to-wear collections.

An opportunity to share experiences, acquire new knowledge and contacts, the fair will offer international conference series covering the most current fashion and textile industry topics on 4 and 5 April.  This will be an important event for designers, stylists, textile professionals and top managers, academic staff and students, and everyone engaged in the fashion and textile industry.

The conference speakers will share their experience and the participants will have the opportunity to discuss the current industry news, e.g. the use of innovative and eco-friendly materials in clothing, starting a fashion business and the development opportunities in Europe, the quality and accessibility of fashion design programmes in Latvia and elsewhere in Europe.

The organisers offer to businesspeople, manufacturers, distributors and designers an exclusive platform to build up business contacts and new partnerships ‒ B2B Matchmaking Event that allows contact potential partners and schedule individual meeting programmes already before the fair and to meet in person, present products and services, discuss opportunities for further collaboration and get business contacts during the fair.

The 14^th International Competition for Young Fashion Designers “Habitus Baltija 2014”, 5 April, will present unique fashion collections created by young designers from Latvia and more than a dozen other countries that will compete for the Grand Prix and a significant prize fund. “Habitus Baltija” is a fashion event included in the events programme of Riga ‒ European Capital of Culture 2014.

More information about the fair: www.balticfashiontextile.com

Registration for the fair is open! Please contact the “Baltic Fashion & Textile 2014” sales manager Ms Ilze Avota on the telephone: +371 67065037 or via e-mail: ilze.avota@bt1.lv

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The event is reminiscing of the first Baltic Way, also known as the Baltic Chain, an extraordinary show of solidarity when some two million ordinary people of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania linked hands to form a human chain from Tallinn to Vilnius in 1989 covering over 600 kilometres. This peaceful protest was to mark the 50^th anniversary of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact which was created between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany and led to occupation of the Baltic States in 1940. This visually stunning event was designed to draw the world’s eyes to the desire for independence from the Soviet Union for each of the Baltic countries and the intense solidarity held among the these three nations.

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Eurostat is the statistical office of the European Union and by comparing figure from all the EU member states over a twelve year period has produced statistics and tables showing unemployment rises and falls within those states. As to be expected during the recent economic crisis all EU member states experienced rapid growth in unemployment. All countries then showed gradual growth in unemployment, a flattening out and eventual decline towards lessening unemployment, all of which takes time and increased commitment between governmental bodies and local industry.

Gratifyingly for the Baltic States figures gathered between September 2011 and 2012 show the biggest drop in all member states is reported to be in Estonia from 11.5% to 9.6%, closely followed by Lithuania from 14.2% to 12.4% and then Latvia from 15.7% to 14.2%..Greeceis shown to be one of the hardest hit with continual unemployment growth figures when their unemployment figures were compared from September 2011 at 18.4% climbing to 25.4% in September 2012.

It has been reported during the peak of the credit crunch crisis years that the whole of the European Union had much to gain from close inspection of the Baltic States and their untiring ability and willingness to belt tighten for the greater good of their economic future. Reports such as Eurostat validate the success of the Baltic States Governmental business policies.

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Since 2011 annual scholarships for students from Russia and the Baltic Region have been supported by Ikea at the Swedish University of Agricultural Science in Alnarp, Sweden for the study of forestry and to promote sustainable forestry in countries that provide important wood sources for Ikea. As Ikea’s long term objective is to source all their wood from forests certified as responsibly managed, they have been a member of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) since 1993, an organisation which sets international standards for responsible forest management. Ikea’s input in Lithuanian forestry in this respect can only have beneficial repercussions and encourage further investment internationally.

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The suggested way this expansion should take place is by building new premises around the existing ones. These new buildings will be built along the whole length of the existing ones, which are located in Klaipeda’s ‘Free Economic Zone’. When the expansion is completed, it is likely to create around 55 new jobs, which will be added to the 290 currently existing employees. This figure is up by 20 staff compared to last September, when the facility housed only 270 staff members.

At the moment, the plant’s daily processing capacity is around 40/20 tonnes of intake/output. After the first phase of expansion is completed, the figure should rise to 48/24 tonnes, and after the second phase, it could increase to as much as 68/34 tonnes a day.

In less than a year, Danish A. Espersen will be celebrating its 10^th birthday – the anniversary of it’s opening, with a LTL 13 million investment and a mere 100 staff. This figure is a far cry from 2010, when it was reported that the company turned over a whopping LTL 65million!

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The CFO Awards was originally started by Vida Ciuberkiene Kumpikiene to give recognition to outstanding finance managers within organisations and their input to the Lithuanian economy, to award the best who have an impact on increasing the significance of the role of finance in the public Sector.

The Criteria for achieving an award is based on; significant improvement or increase in effectiveness in finance function, personal input in achievement of strategic targets of organisation and enforcement of CFO role in public as well as in the organisation internally.

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Egidijus Aleksandravičius, director of the Lithuanian Emigration Institute and professor at VMU, first proposed the idea and subsequently the first course of its kind was held in July of 2010. Egidijus Aleksandravičius said of the course, “the way has been paved by many years of observation. Except for Ireland, other attempts by universities to take original courses of action were weak. VMU is the first one to create a course which meets the challenges of distant future and provides a significant common good.”

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The BBN reported this week that last year Lithuania’s total retail trade volume reached LTL 24.2bn. Monthly trade volumes started rising from the beginning of 2011, but the growth rates only went into double figures last August and stayed that way for the rest of the year. During the last three months growth rates averaged 12%. These high rates were mainly maintained by non-food retail where the trade volume rose by nearly 15% in 2011. At the same time, food retail volumes only managed to advance 2.5% during the year as the recovery in the same sector started much later, mid 2011.

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