(MENAFN- EIN Presswire)
Eksportuoju.lt
VILNIUS, LITHUANIA, October 29, 2020 / EINPresswire.com / -- As a member of the EU, Lithuania became a significant player in the global economy.
Together with Poland and the other Baltic States, Lithuania comprises a rapidly growing
Eastern economy mini-block which is on its way to eventually catch up to the historically
more prosperous Western European nations. Regardless, the Lithuanian economy
remains very distinct even in the context of a multinational and multicultural continent. So,
what do the stats say? What does Lithuania export the most (goods and services) and
where to does it travel? Also, let's focus on what the future may hold.
Export of goods
Mostly thanks to one player which was formerly known as 'Mažeikių nafta' (now 'ORLEN
LIETUVA'), the leading sector of export is oil and its derivatives. ORLEN Lietuva is the
largest company in Lithuania by revenue, so it is no surprise that it exports the most
considerable amount of product out of all trade sectors.
A significant part of total exports are made up by wood and furniture export. The estimates
can slightly vary, but jointly these sectors can make up close to 25% of the total. The
largest part of wood and furniture is bought by none other than IKEA. Lithuania, as a
supplier nation for IKEA, shares 3 rd -4 th place in terms of quantity of products supplied.
A sector that fluctuates a lot yet remains crucial – grain. Depending on the climate, product
outputs (and thus, exports) can vary significantly. For example, the export of grain grew by
76.7% in 2019, when compared to 2018.
A lot of medical and chemical goods, land vehicles and their components, electronics,
mechanical devices, metallurgy products, clothing and textiles, paper and cardboard
industry products, plastics are also exported. The goods export sector, as a whole, is quite
nicely diversified.
Export of services
Lithuania exports a lot less services than goods. However, the former sector is growing a
lot quicker and should be able to reduce the gap to the latter in 10 to 20 years.
Lithuania exports a lot of transport-related services. This is mainly cargo transport,
passenger transport and other transport services. Before the recent pandemic, the sector
grew by almost 10% annually. Each year, Lithuanian businesses export around 2 billion
Euros worth of transport services.
The most significant service export sectors beside transport are telecom and computer
services (200 million Euro per year), travel (270 million Euro per year) and other business
services (430 million Euro per year).
Most of the service exports are delivered to Germany, France, Russia, the Netherlands
and Belarus. Denmark, the UK, Latvia, Sweden and Norway round out the top 10.
Most significant foreign trade partners
As strange as it may seem at first, with the entirety of economic sanctions and tremendous
political antagonism domestically and from the whole of EU, Russia remains the most
important trade partner for both export and import for Lithuania. The Kaliningrad Oblast
and Belarus are the primary corridors through which thousands of Lithuanian trucks and
rail carts reach the Russian market.
Export to Russia makes up around 14% of the country's total. In second place we have
Latvia with 9.5%. The third is Poland with 7.9%, and fourth comes Germany with 7.6%.
Outlook and tendencies
Even though Lithuania imports more goods and services (as of now) than it exports and
we have around 2.5 billion Euro foreign trade deficit, the tendencies are overwhelmingly
positive. The aforementioned deficit is shrinking each year.
Service export is on the rise. A lot of goods and services are sent to prosperous and stable
economic markets where the demand is steady, yet growing. This allows us to expect a
more positive outlook further down the road. In the last 15 years, Lithuania also became
much less dependant on its less stable, yet energy and resource-rich Eastern neighbours.
This allowed diversifying trade.
It is so far unclear how the COVID-19 pandemic will impact our most important export
sectors. It seems inevitable that some kind of setbacks will slow growth for the time being,
but after a few years, we should once again see steady growth.
Information website Eksportuoju.lt
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