Financial Services, Good for Business, Lithuania, Markets and Companies

According to Statistics Lithuania, in Q1, 2012 companies gained profits. The companies' profits made LTL 2 billion (EUR 0.58 billion) which is by 1.3% more than in Q1, 2011.

Average companies' profits stood at 4% (4.5% in Q1, 2011), writes LETA/ELTA.

The share of companies that gained profits in Q1, 2012 made 57.7% and increased compared to Q1 and Q4 in 2011, when it stood at 57.5% and 56.8%, respectively.

n the first quarter of this year, 17 companies earned a profit. Their net profit amounted to LTL 195.8 million (EUR 56.7 million), i.e. it was lower by 15 percent, compared to the first quarter of 2011, when 21 companies operated profitably. Fourteen companies suffered the loss of LTL 29.7 million (EUR 8.6 million) in the first quarter of 2012, which increased by 45 percent, compared to the loss suffered by 10 companies in the first quarter of 2011.

In the first quarter of 2012, 35.5 percent of companies improved their net result, compared to the respective period of 2011, i.e. companies earned larger net profits, suffered smaller losses or those companies, which suffered losses last year, earned profit. Such companies include all companies from financial services and consumer services sectors and several companies from utilities, consumer goods and industrial products sectors.

In the first quarter of 2012, the net result of 64.5% of companies deteriorated, compared to the respective period of 2011, i.e. companies earned smaller net profits, suffered larger losses or those companies, which operated profitably last year, suffered losses.

Companies, whose net result deteriorated in the first quarter of 2012, include main materials, health care and telecommunications sectors' companies (only one company in each sector), the majority of consumer goods companies, including all dairy production companies, and utilities sector companies, as well as companies engaged in freight by sea transport.

Diary production companies indicated that a significant fall in demand and a decline in the prices of products in export markets negatively affected the results. The poorer results of companies engaged in freight by sea transport were determined by high fuel prices and lower transportation tariffs.