Lithuania is looking to tap into new opportunities in the Southeast Asian region, Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said in Brussels on Friday.
“Lithuania has recently adopted its first Indo-Pacific strategy and is firmly committed to seizing new opportunities in the region, especially in sectors such as electronics, biotechnology, lasers, and renewable energy,” the Foreign Ministry quoted Landsbergis as saying.
“We have also stepped up our diplomatic presence with the opening of our embassies in Australia, South Korea, and Singapore and our trade representative office in Taipei,” he said.
At the EU Indo-Pacific Ministerial Forum in Brussels, Landsbergis presented Lithuania’s Indo-Pacific Strategy and Action Plan, which “invites the region’s countries to participate jointly in international formats to step up the rules-based global order”, according to the ministry’s press release.
The EU is stepping up ties with Southeast Asia as part of efforts to reduce its dependence on China.
Lithuania’s authorities say that a decline in trade with China, following the opening of the Taiwanese representative office in Vilnius, has been offset by increased exports to other Indo-Pacific countries.
Meanwhile, Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda has said that China is more of a “strategic adversary” than a partner to the EU and that the attitude of the bloc’s member countries toward the Asian country is gradually changing.
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