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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What do firms expanding to the Eastern Europe need to know before starting marketing in local social media?

It was recently announced that IKEA plans to conquer further the Eastern European market by entering Lithuania, and later opening its stores also in Latvian and Estonia. It is not the first Northern brand which is interested in these markets; H&M is also continuously exploring the opportunities to open its first store in one of the Baltic countries. Costa Coffee, the largest coffee-house chain in the United Kingdom and 2^nd largest in the world, has expanded to Poland in 2006, and to Czech Republic in 2008, and has recently opened its first cafes in the Latvian capital Riga. For the companies it means not only new markets and consumers, but also extensive marketing efforts coped with significant cultural differences. Even such globalized and international marketing field like social media needs a different approach when advertising in Eastern Europe, particularly Baltic countries and European part of Russia.

For example, what should a firm do in the social media in order to attract followers from the Baltics? Estonia has very high Internet-penetration and 75% of population is using the Internet. People there love new gadgets and technologies, and will follow you with great pleasure if you offer them sweeteners of such kind. Latvians, for instance, use their local social network Draugiem.lv, which is far more popular than Facebook, and they are also the most active Twitter-users out of all the three Baltic countries. Lithuanians and Estonians prefer Facebook, it is the 6^th and the 3^rd most visited page in these countries. Google is the most preferred search engine in the Baltics, and Youtube is the third most-visited web page. However, such social media web pages like Foursquare or TripAdvisor are far less popular there than in the Western countries. And everyone in the Baltics is reading or at least browsing from time to time the local news portal Delfi.

As for Russia, everything is even more different there: about 46% of population use Internet, and 25% of them are situated in Moscow or St. Petersburg. The most popular search engine is Yandex.ru, and the most popular social network is local Vkontakte.ru with Facebook being behind it. Blogging is of immense popularity in Russia, with Livejournal.com being the most popular blogging platform.

That is why international social media management is important. It helps to recognize the important distinctions between the social networks of different countries, and to adapt the best practices from other campaigns to the local conditions. As there are a lot of Western firms looking in the direction of the Baltics and other Eastern European countries, this is an important point for their consideration. That is why Charles Cormack established Cormack Consultancy which specializes on helping Western firms to market themselves in the Eastern social media.

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Varley said “It’s so important that we’re able to build a proactive network to help drive innovation amongst hungry startups.” She carried on by saying “We already have TechHub members from around the world and TechHub Riga is the first step in our plans to expand TechHub’s physical presence.”

This move has started to inspire many organisation in Latvia and can only be positive for all and the economy.

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The original Russian built Ignalina nuclear power plant at Visaginas was shut down in 2009 in accordance with agreement made for Lithuania joining the European Union. Plans to replace the plant were dashed when South Korean power company, KEPCO dropped out of their proposed tender in 2010. The workforce that operated the Ignalina plant between 1983 and 2009 are still in place and the site already has environmental consent to build a new nuclear plant and existing major grid connections are already in place. The old plant powered most of the Baltic States region, the new plant is expected to have a capacity out put of 2,200 and 3,400 MW and be completed by 2020. “Before agreement can go ahead the proposals from the two bidders must be discussed with Lithuania’s regional partners Latvia, Estonia and Poland, as well as the European Commission,” stated Minister Sakmokas.

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High on the agenda for Lithuania’s President, Dalia Grybauskaitė was the issue of NATO. On Thursday she was quoted as saying, regarding her impending meeting with Mr Obama, “I will raise issues of urgent importance to Lithuania and other NATO border states. We’re seeking that NATO’s missile defence system, agreed upon last year in Lisbon, should cover all members of the alliance,”

Estonia’s President Toomas Hendric Ilves said of his meeting with the US president, “It is in the interests of both the democratic states of Europe and the United States of America that there are as much strong democratic economies and internationally responsible regions in the world as possible,”

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Swedbank is a leading bank in Sweden, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, who are able to provide financial services to corporate organisations well as private individuals. Swedbank’s current market value of EUR 15 billion is nine times the value of companies presently listed in Tallinn.

On 2^nd May 2011 it was announced that Swedbank was to repurchase their own shares on Nasdaq OMX Stockholm AB. Swedbank currently has no holding of their own shares except for those held in order to facilitate its securities operations, the repurchase is expected to have a positive effect on the present share and company value.

Swedbank’s Baltic area manager Håkan Berg is quoted as saying that ‘the local capital market needs to be developed and listing is one way to do it’.

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