2014-10-30
Interview with Chairman of the Board of the Bank of Lithuania Vitas Vasiliauskas conducted by Carolin Roth and Wilfred Frost. Interview broadcasted live on September 25, 2014.
TRANSCRIPT
You are joining the eurozone at the time when recovery is stalling, when there’s a risk of defliation, unconventional measures put forward by the ECB. We don’t know if they’re effective. Why is it right for you to join?
Thanks for a question. But you know… we are continuing our economical policies and we started the membership to EU and eight years later we fixed our currency to the euro, we fixed exchange rate regime. And it was very important issue how to stabilize economical situation in Lithuania, so the entrance to the euro zone is I would say very… next step, very logical step for our economical development. And I would say stability and integration those two main factors, those two main benefits are related to our entrance to the euro zone. And for us as small open economy those two factors are very important.
Vitas, I don’t want to be cruel but I just wanted to ask if things get much worse again in the euro zone economy indeed in your own, what makes you think that Lithuania can fare better in terms of engineering an internal devaluation than the likes of Greece and Spain and Italy, you know, four five years ago?
You know, I think Lithuania and other Baltic countries are quite good example of response. Of course, we undertook some macro economic adjustments, we corrected our public finances and did it in a very fast way... But in the short term it was shock, but in a long run it helped and now we can enjoy three years of one of the biggest growth in the EU, so and I think it will continue also.