Lithuania aims to attract investment from India, which, according to the head of the Indian Chamber of Commerce, Alina Adomaitytė, also offers immense opportunities for the country's exporters, especially in food technologies and industries.
In an interview with LRT.lt, Adomaitytė said that the “Scandinavian and US markets are saturated [...] and India could be a possible solution” for Lithuanian exporters. According to her, there are already Lithuanian companies working with India.
“We invest a lot into certain food technologies which we could try to sell to India.”
Food industry as a whole is important to India which, according to her, is suffering from “food shortages, especially water”.
“Our mineral water manufacturers are already trading in India; Lithuanian beer is also being sold there.”
Also, “India is one of the biggest markets in the world and I’m always speaking with Lithuanian companies, encouraging them to consider the Indian market, as it offers huge opportunities.”
However, Indians consider Lithuanian to be a minor country and, therefore, “I try to present Lithuania [...] together with the Baltic states, which also belong to the EU. In such a context, the country’s size becomes irrelevant,” she said.
The Indian Chamber of Commerce in Vilnius opened in October 2018, in response to growing Indian interest to invest in Lithuania, she told LRT.lt.
Indian Vice President Venkaiah Naidu visited Lithuania in late August. According to the Lithuanian president's office, it was the highest-ranking state visit from the world's second most populous country.
Read more: Nausėda meets Indian Vice President, calls for embassy in Vilnius
India suffers from acute water shortages and intensifying climate change effects, as 21 major cities in the country are expected to run out of groundwater by 2020, according to a government-run think tank, NITI Aayog.
