Economy
Kaunas is a large centre of industry, trade and services in Lithuania. The most developed industries in Kaunas are: food and beverage industry, textile and light industry, chemical industry, publishing and processing, pharmaceuticals, metal industry, wood processing and furniture industry. Recently information technology and electronics have become an important area of business activities in Kaunas. The city also has large construction industry, including commercial, housing and road construction.
Primary foreign investors in Kaunas are companies from the USA, Finland, Estonia, Denmark, and Russia. Head offices of several major International and Lithuanian companies are located in Kaunas, including "Kraft Foods Lietuva", largest Generic Pharmaceuticals producer in Lithuania "Sanitas group", producer of sportsweare AB "Audimas", one of the largest construction companies "YIT Kausta", JSC "Senukai", largest producer in Lithuania of strong alcoholic drinks JSC "Stumbras", Finnish capital brewery JSC "Ragutis", JSC "Fazer Gardesis", JSC "Stora Enso Packaging"", producer of pharmaceuticals, and the only producer of homoeopathic medicines in Lithuania JSC "Aconitum". Due to its geographic location, Kaunas is considered one of the biggest logistics centres in Lithuania. The largest wholesale, distribution and logistics company in Lithuania and Latvia JSC "Sanitex", as well as a subsidiary of material handling and logistics company Dematic in the Baltics have been operated in Kaunas. Currently, the feasibility study for Kaunas Public Logistics Centre is being prepared by the national state-owned railway company Lithuanian Railways. The “Margasmiltė“ company currently has been working on a project that concerns exploitation of Pagiriai anhydrite deposit. The project includes mining of anhydrite, a mine with underground warehouses, building the overground transport terminal, as well as an administrative building. The Pagiriai anhydrite deposit is located 10.5 km (6.5 mi) south from the downtown of Kaunas, at a 2.2 km (1.4 mi) distance to the southwest from the Garliava town. The resources of thoroughly explored anhydrite in the Pagiriai deposit amount to 81.5 million tons.
The "UBIG group" (a branch of commercial Ūkio bank) is a management company of diversified holdings that operates in the property development, banking, aluminium, mining, logistics, textiles, sports, financial intermediary, and other sectors. The Lithuanian Central Credit Union - national cooperative federation for credit unions established in 2001, is located in Kaunas. At present the Lithuanian Central Credit Union has 61 members.
There are also some innovative companies located in Kaunas, such as leading wholesaler of computer components, data storage media "ACME group", internet and TV provider, communications JSC "Mikrovisata group", developer and producer original products for TV and embedded technologies JSC "Selteka". Joint Lithuanian-German company "Net Frequency", based in Kaunas, is a multimedia and technology service provider. Kaunas is also home to JSC "Baltijos Programinė Įranga", a subsidiary of No Magic, Inc., producing world-leading software modeling tools. A LED lighting assembly plant was opened in Kaunas by South Korean company LK Technology in February 2011. JSC “Baltic car equipment” is one of the leaders in Baltic countries, in the field of manufacturing electronic equipment for automobiles. It also specializes in development of new telemetry, data base creation, mobile payment projects. Kaunas Free Economic Zone established in 1996 has also attracted some investors from abroad, including the development of the new 200 MW Cogeneration Power Plant project, proposed by the Finnish capital company Fortum Heat Lithuania. Before its disestablishment, Air Lithuania had its head office in Kaunas. Kaunas Hydroelectric Power Plant is the largest one in Lithuania.
Some notable changes are under construction and in the stage of disputes. The construction of a new landmark of Kaunas - the Žalgiris Arena - began in the autumn of 2008. It was completed in August 2011. Currently discussions are underway about the further development of the Vilijampolė district on the right bank of the Neris river and the Nemunas River, near their confluence.
Read more about this topic: Kaunas
Famous quotes containing the word economy:
“I favor the policy of economy, not because I wish to save money, but because I wish to save people. The men and women of this country who toil are the ones who bear the cost of the Government. Every dollar that we carelessly waste means that their life will be so much the more meager. Every dollar that we prudently save means that their life will be so much the more abundant. Economy is idealism in its most practical terms.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)
“The aim of the laborer should be, not to get his living, to get “a good job,” but to perform well a certain work; and, even in a pecuniary sense, it would be economy for a town to pay its laborers so well that they would not feel that they were working for low ends, as for a livelihood merely, but for scientific, or even moral ends. Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Unaware of the absurdity of it, we introduce our own petty household rules into the economy of the universe for which the life of generations, peoples, of entire planets, has no importance in relation to the general development.”
—Alexander Herzen (1812–1870)