Prime minister tells Seimas how sanctions on Belarus and Russia affect Lithuania

May 18, BPN. Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė has briefed the parliament on the government’s activities in 2022, highlighting the challenge of orienting the main enterprises of the “former transport corridor between East and West” towards new markets due to sanctions against Belarus and Russia.

The companies include the Port of Klaipėda and Lithuanian Railways, BNS reported.

Šimonytė warned of a possible economic slowdown in 2023 because of geopolitical and global factors.

“Because of the difficult to predict and unstable neighborhood, we will be and are already paying an additional price for the poisoned business climate,” she said.

Lithuania cited national security interests and stopped transporting potash fertilizers produced by Biełaruśkalij, a Belarusian company sanctioned by the United States, in early 2022. Potash was a major export product that was shipped by rail through Lithuania and then via its seaport of Klaipėda.

Russia accounted for 10.7 percent of Lithuania’s exports and 12.1 percent of imports in 2021, prior to the war in Ukraine and the West’s economic retaliation against Moscow that followed.