Žygimantas Mauricas EN

At the moment, Lithuania receives about €623 of EU support per person. The amount will go down significantly after 2020. "This is when we'll see who's been swimming naked," says economist Žygimantas Mauricas.

The end of the European Union's current financial period in 2020, after which Lithuania will be getting substantially less funding from Brussels, will be a cold shower that will expose inefficiencies in the country's economy currently covered up by European money, says a leading economist. To read t...

With data showing that emigration from Lithuania has increased even more this year, the cabinet has drafted a plan to reduce emigration and encourage repatriation. Economists, however, are sceptical that it will work.

Conventional wisdom says that the more time you spend at work, the more you accomplish but that has been challenged recently by psychologists and new initiatives in Sweden where employees are trialling six-hour working days. Could this also work in Lithuania?

Lithuanians’ average savings in their bank accounts would allow them to survive for six months without receiving wages, according to a Nordea bank economist.

Gitanas Nausėda, Žygimantas Mauricas and Nerijus Mačiulis, all economists at leading commercial banks in Lithuania, are optimistic about Lithuania's economy in the coming year but they highlighted some of the greatest economic risks Lithuania faces in the coming year - most of them international rat...

If not for the impact of the economic crisis in Russia, Lithuania's economy would have grown by 4.2% rather than 1.6% last year, according to Nordea bank economists.

Lithuanian shoppers have been making shopping trips to neighbouring Poland where despite comparable living standards prices of food and other goods are considerably cheaper.

Investment in residential real estate in Lithuania last year bounced back to levels last seen in 2007, the year before the financial crisis set in, bursting what was then seen as a real estate bubble.

Lithuanian economists have criticized the government's "inaction", saying that the country's economy have grown despite rather than because of its economic policies. However, challenges loom ahead.

The supply and demand for real estate is growing in Lithuania‘s largest cities with the movement of people from rural areas to cities increasing, drawn by higher wages.

Demographics will soon be the biggest problem facing Lithuanian society and industry, leading economists have warned, urging Lithuanian politicians to address the massive emigration that has been draining the Lithuanian population for over a decade now.

Non-taxable income should be increased instead of the minimum wage and that would put more money in the pocket of workers, according to Naglis Puteikis, a member of, and tapped to be leader of, Lithuania’s newest political party, Increase Tax-Exempt Income (NPD).

Will Lithuania ever again be a nation of 3.5 million? This target, championed by the leaders of six political parties, is to be achieved by 2025. Some experts say it reeks of utopianism, while others point to historic precedents in other countries.

With implemented structural reforms, infrastructure development and innovations, Lithuania could be among the top most competitive countries in the world, say representatives of the World Economic Forum who shared their experience in the Annual Economic Forum organised by the Lithuanian Confederatio...

Remittances from the Lithuanian diaspora has long played a significant role in the country's economy. Expatriates send a lot of the money they make in the UK or Norway to their families that stayed behind in Lithuania, stimulating domestic consumption and keeping some low-earning relatives from fall...

Many a travelling Lithuanian at one time or another had the following conversation: "Where are you from?" - "Lithuania." - "Where? Ukrainia?" - "No, Lithuania. It's a Baltic state, next to Latvia and Estonia." - "(somewhat unconvinced) All right..."

Instability in the euro area results from fragmentation, chief economist for Lithuania at Nordea, the biggest financial group in the Nordic and Baltic countries, believes.

This is the last financial period that Lithuania is entitled to billions of euros in support from the European Union's structural funds. After 2020, the cash flow from the EU coffers will decrease significantly and Lithuania will have to learn to do without the support that currently makes a sizable...