News

On 22 October in Brussels, during Georgia Donors Conference, which was organised by the European Commission, the World Bank and the French Presidency of the European Union, Lithuania pledged 1 million euros for the period of 2009-2010 to reconstruct Georgia.

“Today one of the major goals is to restore the reliance of investors in Georgia and in this way to guarantee conditions for reviving Georgia’s economy that was inflicted by the war as soon as possible,” the representative of Lithuania at the at the conference, Undersecretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Laimonas Talat-Kelpša indicated.

Another area of Lithuania’s support pertains to solving social and economic problems of war refugees, helping them to return to their permanent residence places safely and as quick as possible. About 30,000 refugees will be without permanent home as winter sets in, approximately 130,000 more have lived in complicated conditions since the beginning of the ongoing conflict in Abkhazia since 1992.

Undersecretary of Foreign Ministry L.Talat-Kelpša noted that Lithuania was among the first countries that had provided humanitarian aid to Georgia. The Lithuanian people have made a sound contribution to the common cause by donating 445,000 litas (about 129,000 EUR) to support Georgia.

The World Bank needs assessment estimates that Georgia will require USD 3.25 billion support over the next three years for infrastructure and economy development. During the conference today, donors pledged USD 4.5 billion in total to help Georgia.

The U.S. Government pledged USD 1 billion, the EU promised 500 million euros to support Georgia. The neighbour states of Lithuania - Estonia and Latvia – have pledged aid of 1,1 million and 0,8 million euros respectively, in order to satisfy Georgia’s needs.

Lithuania’s donation will be distributed through the Development Cooperation and Democracy Promotion programme of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.