Baltic Export, Baltic States – CIS, Lithuania, Markets and Companies, Ukraine

The Lithuanian delegation was headed by Director of the External Economic Relations Department at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Albinas Zananavicius. The Ukrainian delegation was led by Director-General of the Directorate General for External Economic Cooperation at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Volodymyr Lakomov.

Lithuanian representatives expressed concern that Ukrainian authorities resumed action to impose restrictions on imports of the production of refrigerator manufacturer Snaige to Ukraine. Currently, the Ministry of Economy of Ukraine initiated a safeguard investigation with the aim to introduce restrictions on refrigerator imports. Lithuanian officials expressed their doubts about the validity of this investigation. They called on Ukraine to respect requirements of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and not to discriminate against manufacturers based on the country of origin of refrigerators.

Ukrainian officials undertook commitments not to discriminate manufacturers and to carry out a full and transparent investigation in accordance with the WTO requirements. Zananavicius also drew Ukrainian officials' attention to the increasing data that dumping measures were possibly applied to exports of Ukrainian refrigerators to the European Union. The Ukrainian refrigerator manufacturer exports about 40% of its production to the EU market. During the meeting, Lithuanian officials called Ukrainian customs representatives' attention to Ukraine's complicated customs procedures, problems with customs identification that arise in Ukrainian customs and result in increased taxation of Lithuanian goods. The delegations agreed to exchange detailed information on the situation and to look for solutions.

During the consultations, officials also discussed issues of negotiations for a free trade agreement between the EU and Ukraine and energy cooperation.