Prime Minister of Lithuania

Yesterday I attended a public lecture by the Prime Minister of Lithuania, Andrius Kubilius.

If you don't know where exactly is Lithuania, don't worry, I didn't know too when I first heard that he was coming to London. Lithuania is a country in Eastern Europe surrounded by Poland, Belarus and Latvia. It is one of the least known countries to me until I met the PM.

Lithuania's official vehicle in London

He gave a lecture on "Lithuania 2030". The title reminded me about our former PM's Vision 2020. Only thing this is a vision a decade later than ours. This is because Lithuania is still an infant, gaining independence only in 1990 from the Soviet Union. The country is barely a generation old!

Hearing from the PM himself, Lithuania is small in size, but packs a punch. Lithuania is registering the fastest growth in the Eastern European community, only second to Estonia.

One of the interesting facts presented by the PM was that Lithuania is a country that gave birth to 15 Nobel prize winners. These were mostly made up of Lithuanian Jews, which gave an interesting perspective of this country and the role it played in WWII and the Holocaust, if any. I shall look this up later.

The PM's presentation was done in an interesting and witty manner, interjecting with jokes in the slides. One of the funniest was when he juxtaposed Lithuania's economic performance in 2000 and 2010 under his leadership. He admitted jokingly that he didn't have a fantastic CV. He showed a slide of Lithuania's GDP of -1.7% in 2000 when he was at the helm of the country; 10 years later the GDP was -14.8% to which the audience burst into laughter.

The PM's track record in handling the economy

He quoted George Friedman that the balance of power within Europe will shift from the West to the East because of the dynamism in growth opportunities. He based this on the assumption that by 2030 the geopolitical geography will be very different in the following way:

1. EU will be consolidated and become more federal
2. EU-US free trade agreement will divide the innovative north and manufacturing south
3. The Baltics will catch up with the Nordics
4. Russia will have a lasting post imperial syndrome vs modernised European Russia
5. Belarus, Ukraine, Modova and Caucasus will transform as permanent gravitation to Europe.

Lithuania's calendar of dynamism. Basketball victory included! LOL

What took me by surprise was Lithuania's GDP drop by 15% also resulted in a drop in total nominal labour cost by 11%. The PM has admitted himself that many Lithuanians have fled the country in search of greener pastures. He himself took a pay cut of 40%!

I could draw parallels with Malaysia's problem of being stuck in a middle income trap, only difference is that our PM's salary has remained the same and increased with inflation. Malaysian engineers for example are not as fortunate. They earn the same salary as engineers twenty years ago! Lithuania is promoting world class standard workers for the price of third world wages. So if you want the same in Asia, look to Malaysia.

The PM was a Physicist before getting into politics 20 years ago

All in all, the PM's evening lecture was informative and presented in an entertaining way. Most importantly I have known so much more about this country than before and it has made me want to visit Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, one day.

I always feel grateful to be able to meet high-profile figures like this once in a while. Lest I forget, I should remind myself that this is one of the incentives of staying in this great city.