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Euro-bound Lithuania clocks 3.4% growth in 2013

30 January 2014, 15:19 CET
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(VILNIUS) - Lithuania, which aims to join the euro in January, posted 3.4 percent growth in 2013, official data showed Thursday, a marginal slowdown from the 3.5 percent announced last year.

The government in Vilnius expects the economy to grow at the same rate this year, marking a sustained deceleration from the 6.1 percent it enjoyed in 2011.

"This is a good result, I wasn't expecting it," Rimantas Rudzkis, an independent Vilnius-based analyst, told AFP.

"The construction sector above all fuelled growth. Housing starts and purchases are up."

He noted that Lithuania received 2.0 billion euros ($2.7 billion) in EU structural funds last year and stressed "there has always been a correlation between these funds and construction."

European Council President Herman van Rompuy and European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso said earlier this month they were optimistic that Lithuania will join the eurozone in 2015.

The move, which a majority of Lithuanians oppose due to fears of price hikes, would mean all three ex-Soviet Baltic states that joined the EU in 2004 would also be in the eurozone.

Latvia adopted the euro on January 1 as the second former Soviet republic to do so, after neighbour Estonia joined in 2011.

Lithuania's Prime Minister Algirdas Butkevicius has pegged his future on the euro, vowing earlier this month to step down should the 2015 entry bid fail.


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