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An Important Message from Cannes: Kaunas Region is Among the Best European Regions of the Future

The economic development and the potential of Kaunas region has been evaluated internationally. The ranking of highly influential FDI Magazine included Kaunas region among the best small European regions of the future, and was granted an award in the category “Economic efficiency”. This year the managers of Kaunas and Kaunas region were among those awarded at the real estate and investment show MIPIM 2016 currently on in Cannes (France).

“The ranking composed by FDI Magazine is one of the two most important rankings of the kind in the world. Any world-class company looking for investment opportunities considers the ranking as very reliable. The fact that Kaunas region was for the first time included in the ranking composed by FDI Magazine, is an event of extreme importance,” Povilas Mačiulis, Deputy Mayor of Kaunas, said.

“The Free Economic Zone established in Kaunas region, the international airport located nearby, and the logistics park being developed at the Vilnius-Kaunas highway have lately recorded significant growth in investment volumes. We believe that the inclusion of the FEZ in the FDI Magazine ranking will accelerate the process,” Kęstutis Povilaitis, Deputy Mayor of Kaunas region, stated.

The developing service centre sector

Increasingly more foreign companies discover Kaunas as a city attractive for investors with residing and working large numbers of high qualification different areas specialists. Those include Callcredit, Intermedix, Bentley Systems, Jotron, etc. The supply of highly qualified IT, engineering and other specialists trained by Kaunas higher schools is one of the principal factors contributing to decisions of foreign companies to establish their divisions and develop operations in Lithuania.

“Kaunas is famous not only as a centre of Lithuanian IT and science; lately it has become a domicile for numerous service centres. The cooperation between universities and business entities yielded a generation of talented, highly qualified, multilingual specialists in IT, finance, business administration, mathematics, and other areas,” Povilas Mačiulis said.

At the awards of service centres in Central and Eastern Europe of 2014 and 2015, due to the growing number of shared services facilities Kaunas was recognised as the best growing city for service centres.

Growing investment

The FEZ established in Kaunas region is the place of operation for 19 companies that have attracted EUR 360 million in investment and created nearly 2,000 jobs. Among new residents is DPD Lietuva operating the largest and most modern parcel sorting terminal in the Baltics. Pienas LT is another company about to launch its operations in the FEZ. Projects in progress include a Swiss capital plant of illumination equipment, smart phones technical centre, and a disposable cup manufacturer Peraltis.  The FEZ still has a huge potential, as only 10 % of its territory is currently used.

Rapidly advancing is an international airport in Karmėlava of Kaunas region and hosting an aircraft servicing enterprise FL Technics, and air park, and building links with the FEZ. The company Global Aviation from the South African Republic started building a new aircraft servicing centre in Kaunas airport.

Another rapidly expanding facility is a logistics park next to the Vilnius-Kaunas highway, and already hosting a logistics centre of a trade giant Lidl, in addition to the logistics centres of the Lithuanian postal company Lietuvos paštas and a pharmaceutical company Limedika, and the Fortum Heat power plant scheduled to be built at the Vilnius-Kaunas highway next year.

 

Information of Public Relations Subdivision