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Linas Linkevicius met with William Danvers. Vilnius, 18.09.2014. Photo: urm.lt

"Lithuania's strive to become a full member of the OECD enjoys the support of all political forces, experts and private businesses. We are consistent in working towards our goal. We allocated required resources for the implementation of the Lithuania-OECD Action Plan and increased the number of the OECD bodies in which Lithuania is engaged in a systematic way," the minister said.

Linkevicius also said that objective results of Lithuania's involvement in the OECD work over the last year ensured the support of quite a few significant members of the OECD for Lithuania's candidacy. Therefore, the country has reason to expect a favourable decision from the OECD member countries regarding the organisation's enlargement. The most realistic date for the formal launch of Lithuania's OECD accession process is May 2015 during the OECD's traditional Ministerial Council Meeting.

The OECD official acknowledged that the organisation's Secretariat and member countries had noticed and welcomed Lithuania's work and intense activities. In his opinion, Lithuania has a great opportunity to open negotiations on a full-fledged membership in 2015, as planned. Danvers called on Lithuanian institutions to further cooperate with the OECD in implementing projects that were important for the country and to fully reap the benefits of experience of the organisation's experts.

The OECD membership provides an opportunity for countries to participate in decision-making on key global economic issues, to discuss and benefit from various countries' examples of good practices in reform areas, as well as to apply them in order to enhance governance, to participate in the OECD's international research and to use the results. A marked and informal influence prestige of the OECD's full membership is the perceived "quality mark" that helps to attract investments and to reduce international borrowing costs.

In addition to focusing on other issues, Danvers also develops the OECD work on investment, the fight against corruption; on innovation; science and technology. He also oversees the accession processes of candidate countries. During the visit to Lithuania, he also attended the international conference How to Make Formal Work Attractive in Vilnius on 17-18 September.