User:Avictory/VilniusEconomy

To be inserted here: Vilnius

Economy
Vilnius is the main economic center of Lithuania as well as a particularly important financial center for the Baltic States. As of the third quarter of 2017, Lithuania's GDP is estimated to be €11.2 billion; Vilnius produces 39 percent of the country's GDP. The average gross salary in the Vilnius region is €911 per month. According to the Cost of Living Index, Vilnius is one of the 5 least expensive cities among European Union countries. Personal income tax in the city is at 15 percent, making it the second lowest tax rate in the EU as well.

There are nearly 442,000 workers in Vilnius' labor pool. Another 60,000 students enrolled in universities and colleges are expected to add to this pool in the coming years. The city's current unemployment rate is 5.6 percent, lower than the national average of 6.6 percent. In a 2012 report, Lithuanian economists from Mykolas Romeris University in Vilnius predicted that the nation's unemployment rate will drop to 4.52 percent by 2020. The labor market is expected to remain stable through the same time whilst growth was expected to slow down after 2015.

Finance
In February 2018, Vilnius was named the Most Dynamically Developing City of Service Centers in its region for the fourth year in a row. This is in large part due to the influx of global companies, investors, and international service centers that have established themselves in Vilnius in recent years. Companies' decision to invest in the city is predicated on specific factors: urban infrastructure, business climate, the supply of professional and multilingual workers, and its strategic proximity to the Nordic, Central, and Eastern European markets.

Vilnius's attractive qualities are all the more interesting compared to the nation of Lithuania's as a whole. In a 2016 OECD report, Lithuania's overall infrastructure was considered below average, with sub par to poor gas, electricity, transport, and broadband networks. Vilnius is disproportionately more modernized and developed than the rest of the country; either owing to or aiding in its increase in the aforementioned factors.

Lithuania has the fourth-lowest business tax among members of the European Union. The nation offers government-funded financial support for foreign businesses. Residents from outside of Europe may also receive a startup visa to build their businesses in Lithuania. These factors have attracted international banks to Vilnius in recent years, including the Scandinavian banks, Nordea, DanskeBank, Swedbank, and DnB, as well as a global bank, Barclay's. Startups like Revolut and TransferGo have also helped turn Vilnius into a hub of finance and financial technology, though not yet on a global scale.

In January 2018, The Bank of Lithuania launched a blockchain sandbox platform called LBChain. This sandbox environment is specifically meant for financial tech startup companies to test their products and solutions in the marketplace. Both domestic and international companies are offered consultation by the Bank of Lithuania, which also acts as the regulatory body over the project. There are no sanctions imposed on the first year of operation. The program is set to launch in 2019.

Infrastructure
The first ever Pan-Baltic Infrastructure Summit was held in Vilnius in September 2017. This event was attended by leading experts in infrastructure and energy, policy makers, developers, and investors from across the Baltic States. Summit topics included: future sources of renewable energy, infrastructure investment prospects, public and private partnership in infrastructure building, and innovations in energy efficiency. Vilnius's goal with this event was to promote a network of development and redevelopment between the states.

Recently, Vilnius has been redeveloping its transportation systems. Its primary goals for this have been to reduce fuel consumption and pollution, increase urban sustainability, and decrease travel distance and traffic.[11] A 2010 assessment of transportation development in Vilnius created three models for evaluating projects based on these goals.[11] It found that it was difficult to reconcile all three into the same project.[11] Instead, it recommends that each project be developed with any combination of two of the three goals in order to maximize benefits and efficiency.

Two major transportation redevelopment projects between Vilnius and Minsk, Belarus were proposed in 2013. The first was the reconstruction and electrification of a high-speed passenger railway service. The estimated cost of the project is €80 million. Forty percent of the funding is to be provided by the Latvia, Lithuania and Belarus Cross Border Cooperation Program. The project is intended to improve and modernize the border crossing points and border infrastructures between Lithuania and Belarus as well as decrease the travel time between the capitals by half an hour. While the project is finished, improvements are still being made to ensure the safety, quality, and sustainability of the service. The second was a road upgrade on the existing route between the cities, specifically on the Lithuania side up to the border crossing point. The estimated cost of this project is €220 million. Construction began in 2017 and is still ongoing.

Future development plans for the city include: renewal of public transport systems, the establishment of Vilnius-based airline companies, and the building of south and west circuits to mitigate the traffic on the main streets of Ukmergės and Geležinis Vilkas.

Research and Technology
The current Minister of Economy, Virginijus Sinkevičius, has recently called for a continued focus on Vilnius' most profitable sectors: biotechnology, financial technology, pharmaceuticals, and lasers. To aid these sectors in growing and expanding, a new program called "Instrument PhD" has been created in a joint effort between the Ministry of Economy and the Research Council of Lithuania. This government-sponsored program co-finances-- up to 50 percent-- a company's expenses for research material and salaries. These companies are selected based on their proposed ideas for doctoral thesis topics.

The majority of Lithuania's technology universities are located in the Vilnius region, which supplies the city's software and IT research and development sectors with two-thirds of its workers. There are currently around 31,000 IT workers and 14,500 developers in Lithuania's workforce. According to the Vice-Minister of Economy, Marius Skarupskas, the city also has a serious interest in cryptocurrency technologies, having "intentions to invest into breakthrough[s] in this area" in the coming years. The hope is that development of and investment into these technologies will help the city become a global financial leader.

While Vilnius has been hailed a "creative and dynamic" city, particularly in regards to its industry and technology sectors, there has been some criticism about their potential in competitive international markets. A 2011 study found that companies in Vilnius are experiencing a weak "clustering" effect, where too many companies are producing similar products, systems, and services. A lack of coordination and centralization in the industry are being cited as the reason for this.

Energy
Lithuanian energy policies are primarily focused on implementing and increasing the use of renewable energy and promoting energy efficiency. As a result, there is a lot of emphasis on finding new sources of renewable energy within the research and development sector. In conjunction with the European Union's commercialization of hydrogen energy technologies, Lithuania is working to expand its national energy sector with a particular focus on hydrogen power. After the Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant, which supplied 70 percent of Lithuania's electricity, was fully shut down in 2009, there were massive energy insecurities across the nation. Research and development of hydrogen fuel options were implemented and funded by the Lithuanian Energy Institute to mitigate this problem. To properly grow this potential energy sector, the government has backed industrial production of nanomaterials for hydrogen energy technologies as well as the establishment of university educational programs for creating a pool of professional workers and experts to join the field in the near future. As a result, hydrogen energy is becoming dramatically more commercialized with the hope that it may be ready for foreign markets soon.

A new hydrogen project was launched in 2012 by SG Dujos Auto called "The Experimental Research Laboratory of Hydrogen as Fuel or Fuel Additive, Ecological Fuel Additives and Fuel Systems." The project was valued at 7.6 million Litas, 5.3 million of which was provided by the European Union Structural Funds. The laboratory is intended to be used by the project's partners, the Lithuanian Energy Institute and Vilnius Gediminas Technical University. The project's main goal is to research and develop hydrogen fuel alternatives and other environmentally-conscious fuel technologies. At present, the laboratory is attempting to work with hydro-methane gas (hydrogen mixed with natural gas) and convert it to use in vehicles. Depending on the success of this, the company would like to implement the production of hydro-methane on an industrial level, with the possibility of expanding to foreign markets.