Lithuania’s shared services sector won in three major categories at the Central and Eastern Europe Shared Services and Outsourcing Awards. At the black tie event in Warsaw last Thursday, Kaunas won the award for “emerging” city of the year, Vilnius won best city of the year, and Barclays Technology Centre in Vilnius was crowned best service centre in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Lithuania featured heavily in this year’s awards, organised by leading Polish information portal Biznes Polska. Alongside the award winners, the short list of 27 nominations included six other companies from the Lithuanian shared services sector; Danske Bank, SEB, Western Union, Ahlstrom... More

The European Commission announced new measures to support innovative companies in Europe. There are mainly two initiatives: so-called FTI, with about €200 mln and SME Instrument with about €117 mln. Business in the Baltics shall be more innovative and active in acquiring EU funds. One initiative is a new €200 million Fast Track to Innovation initiative (FTI) launched on 9 January 2015 by the Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation Carlos Moedas. This instrument will promote innovation by reducing the time it takes to bring innovative ideas to market.  Another initiative is oriented towards active business (so-called SME Instrument): the Commission announce... More

Over the past few months the Baltic States have witnessed an influx of residence permit applications from Russian, Belarussian and Ukrainian citizens. The reason behind this is clear; the deteriorating political and economic conditions in these countries. 12 Russian video game development companies have already chosen to set up their new headquarters in Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital. Marielle Vitureau reports on Radio France Internationale. With its narrow streets winding in between baroque churches, its charming cafes, sprawling green spaces, and multilingualism, Vilnius seems to have everything going for her. But it is, first and foremost, Lithuania’s EU membership – includi... More

The Lithuanian Government has approved amendments to rules for the development and implementation of public private partnership projects (PPPs). The amendments are aimed at improving the procedures for the implementation of PPPs and accelerating the whole process. The new rules will simplify the requirements when preparing a PPP project. New terms for drawing up and evaluating PPP documentation will be established and the whole decision-making process, including new deadlines for approval, will be fixed. For example, project owners will have to begin procurement procedures on a project within 120 days of governmental approval. Moreover, the period of time taken by the relevant authorities t... More

Apple recently announced its best apps of the year, and the winner for best iPad app is Pixelmator, a powerful new image editor, created by two Lithuanian entrepreneurs, brothers Saulius and Aidas Dailides.  “We worked really hard on Pixelmator for almost two years: staying late at night and working weekends researching, adding, perfecting, polishing, then repeating the same process again and again to build or improve the features and core foundation of the app to impossibility – all that for you to later notice or simply feel the awesomeness of Pixelmator for iPad”, Saulius and Aidas posted on Pixelmator blog shortly after the announcement. Pixelmator got a lot... More