Lithuanian investors say government should set up national airline

It was one of ten proposals put forward to the Government by the Investors’ Forum, the association of major investors, on how to improve Lithuania’s competitiveness and investment climate.

Rolandas Valiūnas, Chairman of the Board of the Investors’ Forum, says the Government itself could set up a national airline. The Government could assign the task to the Ministry of Transport and Communications and ask the Finance Ministry to allocate funding. Another possibility is to entrust one of the state enterprises with this task and a holding could be established responsible for the work.

Moreover, ways could be found to take over Air Lituanica, the airline operated by Vilnius city municipality. According to Valiūnas, the national airline has to be established so that Lithuania would not depend on the will of airline companies to fly or not to fly to Vilnius.

Valiūnas says the most important destinations for Lithuania are Helsinki, Stockholm, Oslo, Tampere, Copenhagen, Berlin, Hamburg, Frankfurt and London.

When asked how the Government responded to the proposal, Valiūnas said that “Minister of Transport and Communications Rimantas Sinkevičius remained diplomatic”.

The Investors’ Forum also discussed the liberalisation of the Labour Code, education and healthcare reforms, tax amendments and improvement of tax administration, fight against underground economy and corruption, development of IT infrastructure. Investors urged to enhance the efficiency of the public sector and non-competition of the state sector with private business.