Publicat pe 02/02/2024

Bucharest, February 1, 2024: The President of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Romania, Mr. Mihai Daraban, had a meeting with H.E. Mr. Arturas Zurauskas, the Lithuanian ambassador in Romania, in order to analyze the current situation of bilateral economic exchanges, as well as to identify the optimal solutions for their dynamism.

“Even if the figures show us that between the two states there is a trade value of only 383 million euros, finished products with raw material imported from Romania are traded in Lithuania, and vice versa, so we cannot talk about a real statistic from this point of view. Lithuania and Romania can develop joint projects in the field of energy, an example of good practice being the Lithuanian LNG terminal in Klaipeda, which manages to offer this country a high degree of independence in terms of natural gas. Romania must learn from the experience of Lithuania, especially in the geopolitical situation we are in, and resume the Azerbaijan — Georgia — Romania Interconnector (AGRI) project, as a European alternative to Russian gas. Even though it was started in 2008, for some reasons this project has not been put into practice until now. AGRI involves the transport of natural gas from the Caspian region, on the territory of Azerbaijan and Georgia, and the crossing of the Black Sea with the help of methane carriers to the Port of Constanta. Unfortunately, abandoning this project also meant stopping investments in the gas storage infrastructure, Europe being completely unprepared from this point of view at the present time”, said the president of the CCIR, Mr. Mihai Daraban.

“One of the important points on the agenda of the Embassy of Lithuania in Romania is the promotion of trade relations with your country, an action doubled, obviously, by the continuation of collaboration at the political level between the two states. I am taking advantage of this meeting to request your support in terms of attracting as many Romanian companies as possible to the upcoming 3 Seas Initiative summit, an event that will take place this year in Vilnius, Lithuania. We are very interested in co-opting Romanian entrepreneurs in joint projects, especially in the fields of: energy, transport, digitization and IT&C. The Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Romania and the Embassy of Lithuania in Romania have developed, over time, a very close relationship and I am convinced that, once again, the National Chamber will succeed in encouraging the Romanian business environment to participate in numbers as big as possible at this summit”, declared His Excellency Mr. Arturas Zurauskas, the Lithuanian ambassador to Romania.