Economy of Lithuania - Regional Situation

Regional Situation

Lithuania is divided into 10 counties. There are five cities with a population over 100 thousand and twelve cities of over 30 thousand people. The gross regional product is concentrated in the three largest counties – Vilnius, Kaunas and Klaipėda. These three counties account for 70% of the gross domestic product while having just 59% of the population. Service centers and industry are concentrated there. In five counties (those of Alytus, Marijampole, Panevėžys, Šiauliai and Tauragė), GDP per capita is still below 80% of the national average.

In order to achieve balanced regional distribution of GDP, nine public industrial parks (Akmene Industrial Park, Alytus Industrial Park, Kedainiai Industrial Park, Marijampole Industrial Park, Pagegiai Industrial Park, Panevzys Industrial Park, Radviliskis Industrial Park, Ramygala Industrial Park and Šiauliai Industrial Park) and three private industrial parks (Tauragė Private Industrial Park, Sitkunai Private Industrial Park, Ramučiai Private Logistic and Industrial Park) were established to provide some tax incentives and prepared physical infrastructure.

While the growth in the 1990s was largely constrained to the cities of Vilnius and Klaipėda, in the 2000s the situation changed. Babilonas real estate development, the largest in the Baltic States by land area, was conceived in the fifth-largest city Panevėžys in 2004. In years 2006 - 2008 the large-scale development also reached cities of Kaunas and Šiauliai and some smaller towns.