Lithuania is the largest of the three Baltic states. It is a natural bridge between the West and the East, paving the way to a huge market. In one of the latest reports from the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation (Farnesina), which was published in 2014, there are some interesting comments about the Lithuanian market: “Its strengths are the general recovery that is underway in the Baltics (with growth rates of between 2% and 4%) and Lithuania’s proximity to Scandinavia, Poland and the North-West of Russia. Vilnius and the other two Baltic countries act as a “logistics platform for trade” and together the three states constitute a significant market of approximately 7 million people.

Considerable EU funding is being poured into a number of infrastructure projects in the Baltic region, especially in the energy and transport sectors. Following a downturn in the 1990s, the construction sector in Lithuania was one of the main driving forces behind economic growth in the 2000s, although the building boom was mostly concentrated in the main urban centres. 

Some very interesting investments are also being made in renovation work for buildings and homes in order to save energy, especially on the heating front. There are approximately 27,000 buildings of this kind with much higher heat loss than new constructions. In addition, Lithuanian design and construction companies are working on projects for “passive houses” which use unconventional systems to produce most of the energy required to maintain a thermal balance in the buildings. The effectiveness of a passive house is based on thermal insulation of the building. First and foremost, this requires the use of suitable materials and technologies for the wall coverings, as well as windows and doors made with modern technology. These are yet more areas in which significant opportunities can be seized by Italian suppliers (which are already strong in fields such as ceramic building materials). 

Another major factor that is encouraging us to make ever bigger investments in aspects such as the brand’s digital presence is that Lithuania has some of the fastest internet capabilities in Europe, not to mention a rapidly expanding ICT market that is so competitive on a global scale that it has even received praise from Cupertino. 

We are starting with a website in Lithuanian.