Lithuania’s losses due to Beijing’s trade sanctions have been limited, as China has not been a big export market for the country, according to Finance Minister Gintare Skaiste.
“China has never been a significant economic partner,” Skaiste said, commenting on the EU’s latest request to the World Trade Organization (WTO) to set up a panel over China’s trade sanctions on Lithuania.
“China accounted for just 1% of Lithuania’s total exports even before all the escalations, and now it accounts for around 0.2%”, she said.
Lithuania’s losses in China have been offset by growing exports to other South-East Asian countries, according to the minister.
“I think that the overall counterbalance of this market is certainly greater than any possible losses,” she said.
In Skaiste’s words, it is particularly important that Lithuania is not alone in its trade dispute with China.
The EU said on December 7 that it had requested the establishment of WTO panels for two of its ongoing trade disputes with China.
“One concerns the legality of the trade restrictions that China has had in place against Lithuanian exports and EU exports containing Lithuanian content since December 2021,” the European Commission said in a press release.
Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis welcomed the step as another message to Beijing that the EU will defend its member states “against China’s politically motivated economic coercion”.
The EU’s executive body said that Lithuania’s exports to China fell by 80% YoY in January-October. (LRT/Business World Magazine)