Lithuania today marks National Day

14:00 | 16.02.2015 Category: Political

Chisinau, 16 February /MOLDPRES/ - Lithuania today marks its National Day. The country is situated in the north-east of Central Europe, between Latvia, Belarus, Poland, Russia and the Baltic Sea.

Lithuania is the biggest Baltic state and has over 3 million inhabitants. It has an area of 65,200 square kilometers. Lithuania is divided into ten urban districts and 44 rural ones. Vilnius is the country's capital and has about 600,000 inhabitants. Other big cities are: Kaunas, Klaipeda, Siauliai, Panevezis, Liepaja, Kedainiai, Telsiai.

Lithuania’s National Day is the day when it gained its independence from the Russian Empire in 1918. Lithuania became UN member on 17 September 1991 and EU and NATO member in 2004.

The Lithuanian economy is based on industry and agriculture. It exports cars and industrial equipment, wood, textiles, fish and fishy cans, diary products. Lithuania imports industrial raw material, transport means, fuels. Its agriculture is specialised in breeding animals (for meat and milk) and producing cereals (barley, wheat, rye).

The Moldovan-Lithuanian diplomatic ties were set on 10 July 1992. Moldova’s ambassador to Lithuania is Igor Klipii (starting from June 2010) and Lithuania’s ambassador to Moldova – Rimantas Latakas (starting from August 2014).

Data by the National Bureau of Statistics shows that the Moldovan-Lithuanian bilateral trade was of 30.2 million dollars in 2013 (up by 6.1 per cent against 2012). Moldova exported to Lithuania products worth 15.4 million dollars in January-November 2014.

The Lithuanian authorities provided assistance to Moldova to implement projects on building institutional capacities of the Customs, phytosanitary and judicial bodies, as Moldova is on top of those 7 priority states for Lithuania's foreign assistance.

The Moldovan Diaspora in Lithuania is represented by Dacia organisation, founded in 1989. Three Lithuanian ethno-cultural associations are registered in Moldova, namely: Lithuanian Society (since 1990); Lithuanians’ Community (since 1997); Lithuanian Youth Union (since 1997).

(Reporter: N. Roibu, editor: A. Raileanu)

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