The company was among four chosen from 31 companies at the World Economic Forum in the internet technology sector.

GetJar, the world’s first multi-platform mobile application download provider since 2005 and now the world’s second largest mobile application store with over 1 billion downloads to date, was selected as a Technology Pioneer. It is expected to have a great impact on business, economy and society worldwide.

Technology giants such as Google, Ebay, Paypal, Twitter, Mozilla and Opera were selected and awarded in this category previously. GetJar has more downloads than Nokia, Microsoft, Samsung, LG and is second only to Apple’s integrated AppStore.

The company was chosen among more than 330 applications from around the world by 68 technology experts, including academics, journalists and venture capital companies.

The winners in the programme represent 13 countries and will be officially congratulated during the World Economic Forum meeting in the People’s Republic of China between Sept. 13-15.

The World Economic Forum is an independent, international organization incorporated as a Swiss non-profit foundation concerned with corporate governance systems that support social development and economic progress for global social welfare.

Economists write about countries and companies relying on export to lead them out of the recession. When domestic consumption is weak, the plan is for a country’s companies to expand production by selling to foreign markets. Estonia is no different, and economics minister Juhan Parts, has called for export, as have the country’s president and prime minister.

Hillar Lauri is president of SMIS International OÜ, a company whose software marries IT and radiology. From 1993 to 1995, he was the Manager of the World Bank’s office in Tallinn, followed by six years of working for a NYSE listed energy company. He recently finished his year long assignment establishing an export program to Sweden for Falkonet Metall OÜ.

Almost a third of the Lithuanian residents do not forget their work on their holidays – 28.8 percent of intend to make a call on work issues when they are by the seaside, by a lake or travelling. The Fins and the Norwegians pay similar attention to their work during holidays, while the Danes seem to be least concerned about their jobs when taking a holiday, Omnitel’s study on summer tendencies shows.

On average, one (21.8 percent) out of the five surveyed Lithuanians plan to read their work-related e-mails, 25.5 percent of the respondents intend to respond to such e-mails and 18.5 percent of the respondents say that they will send e-mails themselves when having a holiday.

“The broadest Omnitel 3.5G network connection and the opportunities offered by smart phones allow people not to be” tied” to their work places as one may not cancel their long-planned holidays because of some unexpected work-related issues as it is much more convenient to send a few e-mails while sitting on a shore of a lake,” said Remigijus Staras, Omnitel deputy president for commerce.

The study was carried out for TeliaSonera in June 2010, in cooperation with the research company United Minds. The results were classified into groups to represent the population by sex, age and geographical location.

Lithuania still remains at the top of broadband development in the world, Strategy Analytics stated in a press release. Only South Korea, Hong Kong and the Netherlands achieved better results than Lithuania, which scored 7.52 points. Japan ranked fifth, scoring 7.42 points.

According to the press release, five factors (speed, affordability, value for money, household penetration and urbanicity) were taken into consideration.

Lithuania also has the highest mobile phone penetration rate in the EU, which stands at 147.3%.

Dapkus Mr Prime Minister, the political season has ended together with the end of the Seimas spring session. What has the ruling coalition and the government managed and not managed to achieve during this political season? Which of the tasks that you assigned to the government and the ruling coalition at the beginning of the session would you like to mention?

Kubilius Indeed, even though the Seimas and the government are not the same institution, when a parliamentary sessions ends, we assess the work we have done. The government has very clearly defined the most important priorities for this year and it has been making every effort to implement them.

One of the most important priorities has been the same everywhere in the world and in Europe – to deal with the aftermath of the crisis and to ensure economic revival. I am happy that even though it was difficult to make the decisions, and even though these decisions were painful to the people, we managed to make them, and we continued cutting some expenses, including social expenses. Because we have done that we can now be more optimistic about our future and say that because we were responsible enough, our generation will not burden Lithuania with debt, which means that we feel responsibility for the future of our children.

Another thing that I would like to emphasize, and this was an important issue during this session, we have adopted the legal acts that would help us cope with unemployment. I have in mind the amendments to the Labour Code that will encourage businesses to create new jobs, which sometimes can be temporary jobs, and to employ new workers.

And the third thing I would like to mention is that we will continue looking for ways to help businesses. We see certain signs that some businesses are recovering from the economic crisis.

It is very important that there are first signs that our policy of inviting IT companies, big global companies, to open their businesses in Lithuania, has started showing results. Barclays has established its global computer-engineering centre in Lithuania. We are in the process of signing an agreement with Western Union, which will also set up a similar centre. We are about to sign an agreement with IBM. All this is very important if we consider our long-term perspective.

What other strategic economic issues could I mention? Perhaps changes in the energy market. I would like to remind you that we have been living without the nuclear power plant since 1 January. We had to quickly adjust to the new situation. An open electric power trading market was launched. We have been successfully creating a common Baltic electric power market. We are going to have changes in the gas sector. I would also like to mention the administrative reform. By reforming the system of regional governments we were seeking to bring local government decisions closer to the people. We have not yet managed to ensure that all local governments take over or seek to take over as many duties of regional governments as possible, but we will keep moving in that direction.

As you have mentioned, Lithuania has been living without the Ignalina nuclear power plant since 1 January. What are the government’s plans regarding a new nuclear power plant or regarding other ways that could be employed to ensure electric power supply?

First, I would like to note the fact that the price of electricity went up a little after we closed the Ignalina nuclear power plant, but it did not go up as much as it was forecasted in 2008. They were saying that the price of electricity could reach 0.80 Litas or even 1.00 Litas per kilowatt-hour. But this did not happen. The price of electricity went up by 15-20 per cent (to 0.42 Litas). We certainly have managed to protect Lithuania from bigger problems. And we have started getting ready for further developments.

During this political season we announced an international tender for a strategic investor. I believe we will have such an investor by the end of this year. And then together with our neighbours Latvians, Estonians, and Poles we will move on to concrete preparation for the construction. We are in contact with our neighbour Belarus. I think that through such cooperation we will perhaps manage to persuade the Belarusians that it is not very wise of them to build a nuclear power plant near the Lithuanian border. But these issues will be discussed in the future.

You have mentioned that nuclear power plants in Belarus and Kaliningrad may be built. What will happen with our own construction project if so many nuclear power plants are planned to be built in our neighbourhood?

I think that if we coordinate our plans with our neighbours, if we implement them, if we do not get distracted, and if we adhere to our plan, perhaps some of our neighbours will change their minds. But to achieve that we should ensure that our plans are not misunderstood. And I think that there is more and more understanding as far as our plans are concerned.

I am pleased that, not so long ago, perhaps at the beginning of May, there was a meeting of the four energy ministers or economy ministers responsible for energy issues in Brussels. The meeting was organized at our initiative and the initiative of EU Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger. This was a meeting of the Lithuanian, Latvian, Estonian, and Polish ministers, and Oettinger also participated in the meeting. They signed a very important document, a declaration on the regional importance of the Visaginas nuclear power plant. The document includes the EU’s involvement in the implementation of this project.

The government has decided to merge the electric power networks and to establish a new electric power group. Does it have anything to do with the strategic investor? Besides the construction plans, what are you going to do to restructure the electric power sector?

The restructuring plans are also based on the European Commission’s directives on the separation of the electric power transmission, distribution, and production networks. However, at the same time, the state will remain the owner of all these companies. We will seek to manage all the assets that belong to the state in a proper and effective way. I would like to draw your attention to the wider context here.

We are about to prepare the first public report, which we will publish next week. The report is being prepared in accordance with international standards. It will show how the state is coping with the management of its assets, and the value of these assets is really high – about 18 billion litas. This constitutes about 25 per cent of all the assets existing in our country. For the first time we will announce the results of the management of these assets. The results will be calculated in accordance with international standards.

I have to admit that the results do not look very good. If, for example, such assets were managed by Sweden, the state budget would have received additional 1.5 billion Litas. This is how much profit we could generate from the management of the state-owned assets. This includes the energy and transport sectors, railways, the national mail service, the state-owned woods, and the state-owned buildings where various bureaucratic organizations have their offices.

This leads us to an obvious conclusion that we should reform the management of our assets so that it is done in accordance with internationally accepted principles. There are three key principles. First one is transparency: Reports on the state’s management of the assets should be made public quarterly and the main report should be made public yearly. This will allow the public, our electorate, and international markets to evaluate our success.

This will allow us to show clearly and in accordance with international standards how we are managing our assets. We have not been doing that for 20 years. Nobody has tried to do that; there was just talk about our assets in general terms. Some were saying that we were managing them well, others that we were doing not so well. Now, however, we have clearly shown what the real situation is. The second principle is that we should formulate our goals in a very clear way; we should define what is it that the state is seeking by managing its assets. As we can see from the experience of other countries, one clear goal should be the increase of value of such assets. And the third one, a very clear principle, is to depoliticize the management of state-owned companies.

We are going to base our work on the aforementioned principles. There will be very important reorganizations and changes that should bring benefits to all people of Lithuania.

We should do the same in the energy sector. The assets controlled by the energy companies should be used to implement important energy goals, including the construction of the new nuclear power plant. The same goes for the construction of the electric power bridges, and we have made progress in both projects, with Sweden and Poland. As you can see, we have a lot of important work to do here. As for the gas sector, we are methodically seeking to correct the really big strategic mistakes that had been made in the past when the entire Lithuanian gas sector was privatized and when the distribution and transfer pipelines were not separated. And now we are prepared to implement the EU directives without any exceptions and reservations and to separate these two functions.

Without a doubt, the owners of the Lithuanian gas sector, be it Gazprom or somebody else, are not happy and will never be happy with the changes. But we are seeking to carry out this reorganization because this is the only way to ensure that Lithuanian gas users – individual users and businesses – could finally get the possibility of an alternative gas supply. This is why our next step, which we are going to make, is the construction of a liquefied gas terminal.

As for the gas sector, the separation of the functions and the implementation of the EU directive may lead us to the deterioration of relations with Gazprom. What would be the consequences? How would the owners of Gazprom and Lithuanian Gas react to these initiatives? For a long, time they have been successfully opposing the plans, such as the construction of the liquefied gas terminal.

I do not know what attitude Gazprom has towards the package of measures approved by the EU. If it does not like these measures, it could discuss this with the European Commission. We see the implementation of this directive as a huge strategic benefit to Lithuania, because it is absolutely obvious that our gas sector will not be interested in any alternative pipelines, links with Poland, or the construction of the liquefied gas terminal as long as it is controlled by Gazprom. This is a natural reaction if you are a monopolist, and this is what is today…

It is not important whether this monopolist is Gazprom or some Western company. It would be insane to ask them to allow others to enter the market. We should make it very clear that perhaps we overlooked something, or, if we want to be more precise, perhaps we made a mistake when we allowed one monopolist to privatize the entire Lithuanian gas sector. Seven or eight years have passed since the privatization, and despite all the declarations that alternatives would be created, nothing is happening. This is because, and I will repeat my words again, a monopolist would never agree to such things. And we should understand that very clearly.

Coming back to the liquefied gas terminal, what are the plans, with whom the government is going to build it, and which investors is the go averment going to invite?

We want to move fast forward, the time for discussions is over. If we look at the situation in the world market, international markets, it is absolutely obvious that we are painfully losing because we do not have any alternative to the monopolistic gas supply. In a situation like ours, the monopolist can set his own price that is about $100 higher than Gazprom’s price in the European market. Or the price for 1,000 cubic meters is $150 higher than the price of liquefied gas sold on the world market.

Big changes have taken place in the world when the Americans discovered the technology of extracting shale gas. The United States has got the possibility of having its own gas resources thanks to that. This is why there is a huge oversupply of gas right now in the market. The price of gas extracted in various Middle Eastern countries, such as Qatar and other countries, has fallen drastically, which means that we do not have much time to consider and discuss things.

But are these countries interested in investing in Lithuania, in coming to Lithuania with their capital?

Without a doubt, they are willing to do that. We see a possibility of negotiating with the countries that produce liquefied gas, be it Qatar or some other country; that is an object of discussion. But it is clear that if the state is building such a terminal, it should maintain its leading role in the project.

When will negotiations with an investor and the actual construction be launched?

I certainly would like the process to be as speedy as possible. I think that we should agree on certain organizational issues this summer and after that we will move forward.

But there were plans for you and your delegation to visit one of such countries, and the visit did not take place.

It has been postponed a little, but that is not a problem. We want to have a very clear vision of our actions and our plans. And I hope we will have a plan in the near future. According to our calculations, Lithuania may need about 1.5-2 billion cubic meters of liquefied gas per year. This will give us a very important alternative, because Lithuania uses about 3 billion cubic meters of gas per year. I would like to mention here another new initiative. As you know, during my recent visit to Belarus I had meetings with the Belarusian prime minister and president, the Belarusian representatives expressed their very clearly-formulated strategic interest and asked Lithuania for a certain help or cooperation so that Belarus could also have alternative gas supplies…

… Because they are tired of the constant pressure…

… Yes, they are tired of that; they also went through the so-called gas war. I had an impression that their interest was not melodramatic; it was a very real interest. Without a doubt, their needs are much bigger; they would like to have a liquefied gas terminal for the capacity of up to 8-10 billion cubic meters of liquefied gas, which would clearly change the nature of such a terminal. This is another reason why we need to make swift decisions.

Does this mean that there is a possibility of Belarus participating in the project in one way or another; is it really interested in that?

Belarus is interested, we just need to quickly consider all the possibilities, whether we start with a small terminal, the one we have already planned and which would suit our needs, and then think about how to expand it, or whether we should consider some other options. But I think that the fact the Belarus is looking for alternative sources of gas supply is a very important new tendency.

There have already been attempts to build a terminal in Vilnius, but interest groups had ruined the plans with the help of the legal system. Do you think this time the project will succeed?

All I can say is that our strategic priority is to transform our energy sector into an independent, autonomous, and integrated into the EU energy system. This does not mean that we will stop buying gas from the countries like Russia if the price seems competitive to us. But our strategic priority is an autonomous and independent energy system, and it should be integrated into the EU network.

Over the year and a half that we have been in power, we have demonstrated very clearly that in the areas where we see our most important strategic goals, we manage to achieve the results we need. We manage to implement our decisions even when our coalition is not stable, when it engages in discussions, or when it is chaotic, despite all the discussions and other political peculiarities we manage to achieve our goals. Therefore I do not see any reason why we should doubt whether we will be able to make decisions on such an important strategic issue.

How will this influence the price? Now we are paying a very high price for gas…

As I have already mentioned, the current price of 1,000 cubic meters of liquefied gas on the international market is about $150 less than the price we are paying Gazprom, the monopolist that provides gas to Lithuania. I have discussed this with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. I told him that Gazprom’s representatives should themselves realize that they have to analyse their price policy and they have to make it more flexible. Otherwise the price will only motivate us to seek alternative supplies. Actually, we find alternative supplies important and necessary to us in any case.

What has the Russian prime minister said about the prices of gas and Gazprom’s activities in Lithuania in general? As far as I remember, there had been cases of politicking and meddling in our domestic policy.

We dedicated a lot of time, perhaps half an hour, to the discussion of the tendencies in the global gas market. Perhaps the Russian prime minister thought that we did not know and did not see what was going on, so he was trying to explain to me that the Americans had discovered shale gas. I told him that we knew that and that the Poles could do the same. In other words, we exchanged the information we had. I think that the times when Gazprom could be a monopolist and could dictate its conditions in Europe will soon be over. When during the meeting with the Russian prime minister I said that we were planning to build a liquefied gas terminal, he repeated three or four times that Russia was not against such plans.

Mr Kubilius, what can you say about the rumour that after the electricity distribution networks are merged, they will be privatized?

This interpretation is again not exactly correct… We are speaking about the management of all state assets; which is about 17 billion Litas, including the electricity networks. After we deal with the initial arrangements, that is after there is the initial transparency and order, and after we announce all the data, and after we organize the management process, then we will allow private capital to contribute partially to the state companies, but this part will be very small, we will certainly not give away the entire state portfolio. And we are going to do that not the way we used to do such things in the past when privatizing objects, but we will distribute part of the shares in the market, at the same time we will strengthen capital markets and create new financial instruments. In any case, when the partially private capital enters the management of such assets, it brings positive changes. Private capital always seeks to reduce all expenses and stop all types of squandering. If this is done, state-owned assets could generate profit.

You have mentioned that there has been progress made in the construction of the electricity bridge to Sweden. What have we achieved?

Last year, we achieved crucial political agreements. We had to persuade our neighbours Latvians. Without any doubt, we had to work very consistently to do that. We also had to do a lot of work to persuade the Swedes that we were really ready to build not just some line between a Lithuanian and a Swedish business, but a real infrastructure line that the entire Baltic electric power market will be able to use. The Baltic electric power market will be connected to the Scandinavian electric power market.

In the past, the owners of our energy companies, including the owners of LEO LT, did not manage to persuade the Swedes. Perhaps they had some other plans. We have managed to reach an agreement and to ensure that this project is partially financed by the EU. Now we are doing the concrete practical work. According to the Swedish standards, and according to all international standards, such work cannot be done in one day. We have been urging our neighbours Swedes to accelerate the work, because according to the initial plan of the Swedish energy sector, such a line could start working in 2016.

You have mentioned that the price of electricity after the Ignalina nuclear power plant was closed did not go up as much as it was expected. You have said that this was because of the open electric power market? However, others are saying that we could have made agreements with Russian monopolies and receive electricity for an even lower price.

We think that the situation with the prices was exactly what it was because we created a possibility for the market to function, and the market is operating in accordance with the established Scandinavian model, we applied the same rules. And this is why we managed to avoid the rapid growth of prices that was predicted in all the reports that were used to try to convince [the EU] that the closure of the Ignalina nuclear power plant would be catastrophic for Lithuania. The previous government made an official statement that the price would double after the Ignalina nuclear power plant is decommissioned.

Does this mean that an agreement with RAO (Russian electricity company) was not needed?

It was not needed, that is for sure. And, in my opinion, the fact that the Scandinavian model is working is one of the key reasons why we have a competitive electricity price.

The value of the contract: US 260 million (about 728 million Litas), which is considered to be the largest private transaction in the history of modern Lithuania; a higher price was only paid in cases of state-asset privatization.

“It is particularly important that the foundations for this contract were laid by the Lithuanian scientists whose long-term and arduous efforts as well as creativity have generated an enormous value, which has now been confirmed by one of the world leaders in biotechnology”, – said Andrius Kubilius.

However, he pointed out, this was just a beginning, as we are currency working on a contract with the multinational company IBM about the opening up of a global research centre in Lithuania, which will further exploit the scientific potential of Lithuania, and provide new momentum enabling a larger number of Lithuanian scientists to reach a wider acclaim.

According to the Prime Minister, the so-called research valleys and well-focused western investments create preconditions for marrying the Lithuanian scientific achievements with large money. “this is the only way for the science and modern technology to turn into modern global business thus fulfilling Lithuania’s goal to become a Baltic-Nordic service hub,” – said the Prime Minister. In his opinion, the service centre is not a goal in itself, as “in the first place, it will provide an important source for livelihood in Lithuania, as it will create hundreds and thousands of jobs to the best-skilled professionals.

According to Prime Minister`s Adviser on Economic Affairs Mykolas Majauskas, Thermo Fisher Scientific is no longer an exception, but another confirmation and outcome of the well-focussed government`s policy of attracting foreign investment in high tech sectors: as a proof to that is the arrival over a short period of time of such giants as Barclays, Western Union, IBM, to be certainly followed by others.

Thermo Fisher Scientific is the world`s largest company, offering products and services for research. The company employs about 35 thousand people, with the annual revenue over 10 billion US dollars.

Fermentas International has approximately 500 employees and its headquarters are in Burlington (Ontario, Canada), the main activities are carried out in Vilnius. In 2009, the group`s annual revenues amounted to about 55 million U.S. dollars. Fermentas will become a part of analytical technology unit at Thermo Fisher.

US Thermo Fisher Scientific confirmed that it has completed the acquisition of 100 per cent of shares of the Lithuanian company Fermentas International.  The US giant has bought the Lithuanian company for USD 260 mln and is expecting to finalise the deal in the autumn of 2010.

Thermo Fisher Scientific has announced that the company is planning to expand its operations in Lithuania.  ‘We are glad to have completed Fermentas acquisition procedures. We are planning to continue infrastructure expansion. With sales rising, we don’t rule out increasing resources,’ Norman David Eansor, the president of life science research at Thermo Fisher Scientific said to reporters on 20 July.

Lithuanian Prime Minster Andrius Kubilius expressed his satisfaction about the deal. ’It is symbolic that the largest private deal in Lithuania has been achieved in the field of science. Science earns good money. It proves once more that the direction chosen by the government is right. The government is investing heavily into research, high-tech clusters, and development of valleys. We are sparing no efforts in inviting large foreign companies to invest in Lithuania,’ Kubilius said to Public radio on 20 July.

The drop is steeper than a 5.3 percent decline of the worldwide IT services market, as reported by Gartner.

On the other hand, less mature markets exhibit similar dynamics, as an example, Russian IT services market was down by 12 percent year-to-year in 2009 (denominated in rubles, reported by IDC).

According to the survey, revenues from other than IT services, such as hardware and standard software sales declined by a dramatic 40 percent, which indicates a notable freeze in IT investment.

It seems that the second half of 2009 was worse than the first that indicated an average decline of total sales of 19 percent, compared to 26 percent annual change. In terms of individual companies, 14 of 20 top-20 companies experienced a drop in their annual revenues last year.

The top position among the Baltic IT service providers is maintained by Exigen Services, which however lost close to 29 percent of revenue in 2009. A significant portion of its revenues in Baltic is related to public and government sectors, and reductions of budgets impacted the business of Exigen Services. In a broader perspective, the company feels that it maintained its positions in the region which sees recovery, and also managed to increase the share of global business, which effectively allowed to smooth outcomes of local market correction.

Webmedia finished second and closely surpassed Alna Group, now third after a 26 percent drop in revenues. Webmedia succeeded in expanding service geography and securing new revenue streams in the Gulf countries and also started large projects involving Public Finance Management product. Alna group suffered from clients postponing their projects due to unclear outlook in 2009 and budget cuts.

The most notable newcomer in the market is ERP, a Lithuanian IT group. The group experienced a notable increase in revenues in 2009 driven by complex projects in customs IT systems across Kazakhstan, Belarus, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. As a consequence ERP became the fastest growing IT services company of the rating with 86.5 percent growth in 2009.

Baltnetos komunikacijos and Etronika also experienced a notable increase in IT service revenues. Baltnetos komunikacijos had a good year with overall revenue improving by more than third driven by solutions aimed at efficiency enhancement that were well accepted by the customers.

Overall revenues were also improved after taking over Norby telecom in Lithuania last year. Etronika grew 36 percent as it won new clients in its niche and some of them brought substantial projects.

Santa Monica Networks Group also was among the fastest growing companies in top-20 in terms of IT service revenues. The company deliberately focused on offering services and achieved growth of IT service revenues of almost 30 percent despite an 8 percent drop in its total sales. In addition, its presence in 4 countries also helped to diversify and cushion the effect of economic slowdown.

13 companies in the top 20 saw their sales of IT services decline compared to 2008. Blue Bridge experienced a drop in activity due to a general downturn effects on their clients causing a 40 percent drop in revenue. Isoft lost around 45 percent of IT services revenue after extremely successful results in 2008 when few major projects were completed. HNIT-Baltic saw a decline of 56 percent. The majority of its clients are state organizations, and the company was hard hit by savings measures.

According to the statement the representatives of the EMC are visiting Lithuanian this week.  They were invited by Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius.

“It is a global leader in data storage and management solutions.  Lithuania is seeking to become an IT Support Centre of the Nordic Baltic region by 2015.  It would be great if this company would follow Barclays and Western Union example.” Mantas Nocius, the director general of Invest Lithuania, said in a statement.

According to the statement EMC has invested more than 9 billion USD in the last seven years so far.

Every second spends more time at home

Some 73 percent of young people from 15 to 26 years old admitted that they have been influenced by the recession and only 7 percent said that they haven‘t noticed it. The changes in free time habits reveal the influence of the recession the best.

More than a half, 56 percent, of respondents claim that they choose paid entertainment more seldom. Another 46 percent are trying to find cheaper ways of spending their free time. Due to these reasons, youngsters spend more time at home – 54 percent agreed that they go out less often.

Another 62 percent said they spend less time in bars and cafés, visit cinema theatres more rarely (48 percent). They save money by spending less on garments and buying them more seldom (57 percent), or look for the discounts and cheaper deals (40 percent).

The attitude determines how they feel

“It was most interesting to notice, that the respondents divide into two groups. Ones are talking about what crisis has given for them and emphasize that they are able to spend more time with their families, in an intimate environment, while others talk about what crisis has taken from them, and stress that they lack money for cafés and other kinds of entertainment. So how we feel during difficult times, is really determined by our inner attitude,” says the head of research of Macroscope Renata Lazdin.

No life without a car and internet

One of the few youth habits that almost haven‘t been changed by the recession, is travelling by car – only one tenth of the respondents said that they are using it more rarely.

The survey showed that young people mostly get news and information from the internet – 8 out of 10 said they read news portals every day, while only 5 of ten turn on the TV, and 4 – the radio. Only every fifth young Lithuanian reads the newspapers.

More than one tenth of respondents revealed that they spend more than 9 hours in the internet. However, 52 percent said they spend 1 to 5 hours surfing the internet daily.

The group of youth habits monitoring is formed by 700 Lithuanian youngsters of 16-26 years old. The monitoring is conducted every half a year, and this data represents the information collected in May 2010. The research was conducted by the social and market research company Macroscope. 

“It was most interesting to notice, that the respondents divide into two groups. Ones are talking about what crisis has given for them and emphasize that they are able to spend more time with their families, in an intimate environment, while others talk about what crisis has taken from them, and stress that they lack money for cafés and other kinds of entertainment. So how we feel during difficult times, is really determined by our inner attitude,” says the head of research of Macroscope Renata Lazdin.