Vilnius invites Swiss companies to Lithuania

Lithuania’s Minister of Foreign Affairs has met with his Swiss counterpart to discuss bilateral relations as part of the country’s Presidency of the Council of the European Union.

Linas Linkevičius, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania met with Didier Burkhalter, Head of the Department of Foreign Affairs of Switzerland, to discuss multilateral co-operation and priorities of the Council Presidency. Decisions are set to be made during the Presidency on the institutionalisation of relations between the EU and Switzerland.

Speaking about the meeting, Linkevičius said: “Lithuania’s Presidency of the EU Council is striving for an efficient and mutually beneficial co-operation between the EU and Switzerland.”

Linkevičius has invited Swiss companies to look more actively into business opportunities in Lithuania. Both ministers agreed that the bilateral co-operation still had a lot of untapped potential in the area of trade and investment. In 2012, Lithuanian exports to Switzerland increased by a quarter and imports by 27%.

When speaking about multilateral co-operation, Linkevičius thanked Switzerland for its support to Lithuania’s aspirations to join the OECD and to Lithuania’s bid for a non-permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council in 2014-2015. The Foreign Minister also promised support to Switzerland’s Chairmanship of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in 2014.

Linkevičius also thanked Switzerland for its financial assistance to Lithuania and other countries that joined the EU after 2004. The Foreign Minister expressed his belief that the co-operation programmes would be sustained in the future.