News

On 22-23 May a meeting of ministers of trade and economy of the Council of the Baltic Sea States (CBSS) took place in Stockholm.  At the meeting Lithuania vas represented by Lithuanian Ambassador to Sweden Remigijus Motuzas, Director of Foreign Trade Department of Lithuanian Foreign Ministry Raimundas Karoblis, and Undersecretary of the Ministry of Economy Gediminas Rainys.

The main topics of the meeting were economic cooperation of the Baltic Sea region and its place in the world trade system. Representatives of many countries underlined the need to decrease trade and investment obstacles between the states of the region.

Lithuanian representatives marked the importance of Russia’s accession to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and also spoke up for implementation of free trade between the European Union and the Russian Federation as a strategic objective.

The attention of the CBSS member states was drawn to recent trade problems related to Russia: lingering negotiations on Russia’s  accession to the WTO, continuing embargo on Polish meat import, cut-off of oil supply to ‘Mažeikių nafta’ and Ventspils terminal, factual economic sanctions against Estonia. The necessity to solve these problems was stressed at the meeting.

Ministers of trade and economy of the CBSS also met with the winners of international contest organized by Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Baltic Business School of Kalmar University.

Three students of Vilnius University, whose works on the topic of “Sustainable Development of the Baltic Sea Region as a Guarantee of Competitive Advantage” the organizers selected as the most interesting, became the winners of the contest.