LITHUANIA, June 7 - On Tuesday, Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė met with the representatives of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Mission, who had worked in Lithuania since the end of May assessing the country’s economic situation, the effects of the Russian war in Ukraine, the situation of the financial sector as well as the business and labour market environments. The representatives also familiarized themselves with the actions of Lithuania to stabilize the energy prices and growing inflation.

‘Lithuanian economy is open and not isolated from external and global shocks, such as the war launched by Russia in Ukraine. The Government actions to mitigate its effects, which are felt not only by us, received favourable assessment from the IMF while the forecasts for the Lithuanian economy are moderately optimistic’, said Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė.

According to the IMF experts’ mission led by Borja Gracia, which worked in Lithuania for nearly two weeks, the Lithuanian economy has maintained its resilience in the face of uncertainties and challenges, therefore this year GDP growth forecast for Lithuania is nearly 2%. While the inflation is expected to settle down and start decreasing during the second half of this year and to decrease significantly in 2023.

One of the factors determining greater resilience of Lithuania in the future is renouncement of the imports of energy resources from Russia, whereas important tasks in the long run, as emphasized by the IMF experts, are structural reforms in the areas of education and healthcare to increase productivity.