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Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania Linas Linkevičius met with William Danvers, Deputy Secretary-General of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), who is visiting Vilnius on 18 September. L.Linkevičius thanked the OECD Secretariat for its professional assistance and consultations during this period of intense cooperation and stressed that Lithuania is ready to effectively contribute to achieving the OECD goals.

“Lithuania’s aim to become a full member of the OECD enjoys the support of all political forces, experts and private businesses in our country. We are consistently working towards our goal. We allocated required resources for the implementation of the Lithuania-OECD Action Plan and increased the number of the OECD bodies in which Lithuania is engaging in a systematic way,” –  the Minister said.

L.Linkevičius also said that Lithuania’s effective involvement in the OECD work over the last year ensured the support of a number of OECD member states for Lithuania’s candidacy. Therefore, there is reason to expect a favourable decision from the OECD member countries regarding the enlargement of the organization. The most realistic date for the formal launch of Lithuania’s OECD accession process is May 2015 during the OECD’s traditional Ministerial Council Meeting.

The OECD official acknowledged that the organisation’s Secretariat and member countries had noticed and welcomed Lithuania’s active work. In his opinion, Lithuania has a great opportunity to open negotiations on a full-fledged membership in 2015, as planned. W.Danvers called on Lithuanian institutions to further cooperate with the OECD in implementing projects that were important for the country and to take full advantage of the benefits and experience of the organisation’s experts.

The OECD membership provides an opportunity for countries to participate in decision-making process on key global economic issues, to discuss good practices in reforms of different countries’ and apply them in order to enhance governance, to participate and benefit from the OECD’s international research. Informal influence of the OECD’s full membership is also significant, it gives the prestige and “quality mark” that helps to attract investments and to reduce international borrowing costs.

W.Danvers responsibilities in the OECD include investment; the fight against corruption; innovation; science and the enlargement of the organization. During the visit to Lithuania, he attends the International Conference “How to make formal work attractive” in Vilnius on 17-18 September.