On Wednesday, President Gitanas Nausėda had a meeting with Minister of the Economy and Innovation Lukas Savickas and representatives of business associations.
"The president sees faster economic growth as the main source of funding to raise an additional EUR 12 billion for the national division to be in place by 2030. All regions would benefit from this growth. This would take a couple of years, so the president sees borrowing as the main instrument until then," Vaidas Augustinavičius, economic adviser to the president, told a press conference after the meeting.
"In the president’s opinion, GDP growth should be not 2.5-3%, as it has been recently. We hould aim for economic growth of 3.5% to 4%," he said.
This economic growth would cover up to 40% of defence needs, with the same amount covered by borrowing and the remaining 20-40% by measures such as reducing the shadow economy, according to the president’s adviser. It is precisely the borrowing that would allow to reach 5-6% of GDP for defence, a target set by the State Defence Council’s (VGT) in January, Augustinavičius said.
Economy Minister Savickas believes that this growth figure is possible with an ambitious investment programme. He said that he presented to the president a "Start" plan that would accelerate the economy and generate around EUR 10 billion for the budget by 2030.
"It sets out the levelling of the business environment, a greater focus on technological progress and higher added value, which would generate revenue," the minister said.
Vidmantas Janulevičius, president of the Lithuanian Confederation of Industrialists (LPK), said investment measures are particularly needed to help Lithuania’s stagnant sectors.
"I am glad that the problem has been noticed. Because today the manufacturing industry, which employs 200,000 people, has a profitability of 0.3 percentage points, while the average for loans is 5%. We (the industry) are not developing, to say the least," he said.
The LPK has put forward the idea of a GDP of EUR 100 billion in 2030, according to Janulevičius.
"If we take 5% of the EUR 100 billion, we would have twice the defence spending we have today. We need incentives and access to capital," he said.