Chinese market attractive for Lithuanian companies: official

The Chinese market is a big interest for Lithuanian companies, the chairman of Lithuania-China Business Council said on Monday.

Osvaldas Ciuksys expressed his eagerness to promote the bilateral trade during the interview with Xinhua, saying "Current bilateral trade and investment figures are not high."

"We think that some real breakthrough in Lithuanian export figures will be happening after the certificates of conformity and quality to be issued for Lithuanian meat and dairy products," he said.

"We expect it to be happening at the beginning of next year," he added.

Newly established at the beginning of this year, the council is aimed to increase Lithuanian-Chinese economic cooperation and promote Lithuanian exports to China as well as Chinese investments to Lithuania, Ciuksys said.

The Russian market is less attractive and becoming unpredictable, thus Lithuanian companies are looking for alternatives.

"The need to diversify the exports has an increasing importance," he added.

Ciuksys said the council has started planning for promoting the bilateral cooperation.

"The Council has one particular project to offer for Lithuanian companies, which is the establishment of 3-5 Lithuanian products shops at the biggest shopping malls in the most important Chinese cities," he noted.

"We will be coordinating this project and plan to open first 1-2 shops during the summer of next year," Ciuksys continued.

Ciuksys also pointed out Chinese companies' increasing attention of regarding Lithuania as a potential place for investments.

"We see increasing number of Chinese business delegations as well as more Chinese companies having plans to participate in some specialized trade and service fairs this autumn," he said.

As a Baltic country with a population of 3 million which is far away from China, Lithuania has very good food products with high quality and good price, according to Ciuksys.

The food products have good perspectives in China, and "have possibility to position them as 'made in Europe' and 'ecological/green products'," he continued.

Concerning other products that Lithuania can export to China, Ciuksys raised the examples of designed furniture, some specific textile products and amber jewelery.

Ciuksys added that a Lithuanian lasers producer, Ekspla, had been cooperating with different manufacturing companies in China.

Regarding the big market in China, Ciuksys said his council recommend Lithuanian companies not only concentrate on best known cities in the eastern part of China, but also pay attention to cities like Chengdu where competition of the world known brands is lower.

Lithuania's exports of farm and food products to Russia fell by nearly 6 percent in the first half of this year to 2.353 billion litas (about 941 million U.S. dollars), from 2.504 billion litas in the same period last year, according to data from Statistics Lithuania. (1 U.S. dollar = 2.5 Litas)