Lithuania will open a trade office in Taiwan in September and has appointed Paulius Lukauskas, currently an adviser to Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonyte, to head the office, the Lithuanian Economy and Innovation Ministry announced Wednesday.
“Taiwan is included in Lithuania’s priority markets for innovation cooperation, exports, and foreign direct investment. In the first half of this year, exports of Lithuanian-origin goods and services to Taipei increased by one-third,” Lithuania’s Economy and Innovation Minister Aušrine Armonaite was quoted as saying in a statement.
She said that the office in Taipei would not only help diversify Lithuania’s economic representation in Asia but will also promote mutual technological cooperation.
The ministry said in the statement that two-way trade for the first six months of 2022 increased by 92.6 percent year-over-year.
Lukauskas has over 20 years of experience in industries and has held executive positions in various enterprises before assuming public office.
Lithuania has commercial representatives in its embassies in the United Kingdom, the United States, Sweden, Norway, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Israel, and expects to bring the total to 23 by 2024.
Newly installed commercial representatives will be stationed in the embassies in South Korea, Japan, and Poland, and the number of business representatives in the embassies in the U.S. and Germany will be expanded to three.
Lukauskas is currently advising Lithuania’s prime minister on strategic reforms and previously headed Enterprise Lithuania, the country’s entrepreneurship and export development agency.
The new Lithuanian trade office in Taiwan will be called Lithuania’s Trade Representative Office in Taipei, not Taiwan.
Lithuanian officials also stress it will be a commercial, not a diplomatic, office, according to a report by the Baltic News Service (BNS).
Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel
