News

On Wednesday, continuing his visit in the United States, Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius opened the NASDAQ Stock Market morning trading session in New York.

 Prime Minister Kubilius delivered a short address during the morning bell-ringing ceremony, which had been hosted by a number of famous people from around the world; the Prime Minister noted that a branch of the NASDAQ OMX Group has been operating in Lithuania as Vilnius Stock Exchange.

During the opening ceremony of the trading session, Senior Vice President of New Listings and the Capital Markets Group of the NASDAQ OMX Group Robert H. McCooey, Jr. presented Lithuania as a country attractive for investment and stressed that the NASDAQ OMX Group, which owns NASDAQ OMX Vilnius Stock Exchange and had invested into the Central Securities Depository of Lithuania, has a strategic interest to develop capital markets in the Baltic Region.

“Be farsighted, invest in Lithuania. Lithuania is a dynamic and courageous country that likes winning and knows how to do it. By investing into Lithuania, we shall win together!” said Prime Minister Kubilius during the opening of the NASDAQ Stock Market morning trading session.

According to President and Chairman of the Management Board of NASDAQ OMX Vilnius Arminta Saladžienė, the NASDAQ MarketSite located in NY Times Square, is considered a symbol of progress with respect to modern technologies, business and financial world. Therefore, it is especially delightful that it was there that Lithuania was introduced to the financial community during the investment-targeted visit of Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius.

 NASDAQ opening and closing bell ceremonies have been hosted by different high-ranking state officials such as U.S. President Barack Obama or U.S. Secretary of State Ms. Clinton and other well-known figures. It is here that corporate highlight events are marked by best-known companies, listed at NASDAQ OMX, such as Microsoft, Google, Starbucks, Cisco, and many others. AB Nasdaq OMX Vilnius is a new name to AB Vilnius Stock Exchange.

Name changing was another step towards integration into the world’s largest stock exchange operator NASDAQ OMX.

2010 02 03 ANDRIUS KUBILIUS: US INVESTMENTS MUST BE ATTRACTED

“There is interest in investment opportunities in Lithuania, but a lot of work still needs to be done to turn it into cash flowing into Lithuania’s economy”, said Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius summarising results of the first day of his working visit in the USA.

 The Prime Minister pointed out that the Silicon Valley IT and venture capital corporations and investors are actively interested in opportunities to develop their activities in Lithuania; however, Lithuania still needs to do a lot in raising awareness about its advantages.

“The US investments will not arrive of their own accord, they must be attracted”, said the Prime Minister. To this end, permanent relations with the potential investors must be maintained, and the visit to the Silicon Valley in California is a mere start in this work. “But the start was promising”, noted the Prime Minister.

According to the Prime Minister, investment into the IT is of special significance for Lithuania at this moment in time: the country starts to recover from the crisis, and the long-term strategy for Lithuania “can and needs” to be planned. “Investment into the IT sector is investment into Lithuania’s future, the future for our children”, said the Prime Minister.

On Monday, the first day of the visit to the U.S, Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius met with heads of the leading IT corporations: Oracle, Cisco, HP, as well as members of the venture capital group Accel Partners.

The purpose of the visit of Prime Minister Kubilius to the United States is to attract investment into Lithuania. Last November, a visit of similar profile was made to London, where he went together with Minister of Finance Ingrida Šimonytė.

Due to her father’s death, the Minister of Finance was unable to join the visit of the Prime Minister to California, but she managed to catch up with the Lithuanian delegation on its visit to New York on Wednesday.

Lithuanian head of the government plans to continue a series of visits to major financial and business centers with a view to attracting investment. The closest event of this nature is USBF annual forum in Washington in May.

Follow up meetings with leading IT companies of the Silicon Valley are being arranged during the USBF forum. A delegation of Lithuanian businessmen is expected to join the Lithuanian Prime Minister Kubilius on his trip to the USBF forum.