The Main Strategic Directions in Improving of Export Development in Lithuania

Abstract

The article deals with the main problems of strate-gic directions of export selling and promotion. The ex-port development factors and their economic impact as well as efficiency of export enhancement and promotion tools up to now have not been examined enough from the viewpoint of strategy, though the special investiga-tion of the effectiveness of segregated export promotion tools are badly needed. Thus the different concepts on strategies, competitive advantages, marketing and in-ternational marketing are analyzed. The best practice on export enhancement and promotion used in different countries and published in scientific articles and books are overviewed. The analysis of the main statistical data on Lithuanian export has been provided in the form of figures and diagrams. The analysis led to the conclusion that Lithuanian exports after Lithuania’s entering EU were growing up and structure has been changed from export to Eastern markets to Western ones faster. The problems discovered are the structure of goods ex-ported: 25 percent of export remains on export of oil refining products, which heavily depends on Russian oil supply, composition of Lithuanian exports by technology level: high technology goods amount less than 10 per-cent and just about 20 percent of it is attributed to the high and medium quality products. The causes of such situation were weakness of Lithuanian Economic Devel-opment Agency (LEPA), not enough information on for-eign markets, low value added of exported goods, un-willingness of managers to take risk, lack of funds, very few logistic centers abroad, dependence on foreign dis-tributors, intentional delays and underdevelopment of export insurance and export enhancement and promo-tion framework. Lithuania’s membership in EU crashed barriers for Lithuanian goods composed by Russia. The export of goods and services from Lithuania to Russia has been growing successfully from 2005. The most in-teresting and new export promotion tools used in Ger-many, Austria, Pakistan, India Sweden and other devel-oped countries has been analyzed as to compare with measures and weaknesses of tools used in Lithuania. The gap between developed and developing countries like Lithuania remains significant in the development of new products, quality, structure of goods exported, per-formance of environmental and safety requirements. As the result of the research the main strategic directions for export development and promotion for Lithuania are suggested.