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Managers who propose creating a state bank say their main task would be to lend to small and medium-sized businesses.
67 politicians voted in favor of the resolution, 14 parliamentarians voted against, 13 Seimas members abstained.
Sigismund Gedvila / 15min photo / Moment of the Seimas sitting
The fact that the Lithuanian banking sector is one of the most concentrated in the European Union (EU) argues the need to create such an institution, and the opportunities to attract new market players are limited due to objective development conditions socioeconomic, such as the small market and unfavorable demographic trends.
The Seimas draft resolution states that the availability of credit for small and medium-sized enterprises in Lithuania is one of the lowest in the EU, and the establishment of a state development bank and the state’s participation in the capital of the institutions credit could reduce this market failure.
Tomás Tomilinas, a “peasant”, said during the Seimas session that countries around the world are increasingly involved in economic activities.
Sigismund Gedvila / 15min photo / Tomas Tomilinas
“We do this not because we have strange ideological motives or look back, but because we are absolute practitioners. We see how markets work, we see the pros and cons, and we see where the state pressure should come from,” said the MP.
Another “peasant”, Valius Ąžuolas, chairman of the Seimas Budget and Finance Committee, said that even private banks supported the establishment of a state bank so that it could deal not only with profits, but also with those businesses to which the commercial banks do not lend.
According to him, currently 70 percent. Small and medium business loan applications are rejected.
Photo by Luke April / 15min / Valius Oak
“The COVID-19 situation only confirmed and deepened all of this,” said V. Oak.
The opposition, which is opposed to the initiative, says that the proposal to create a state bank is adopted just before the elections, so the next government will have to implement the decision. Some politicians also say that those in power are tricking people into operating in the retail banking market, for example, by providing retail banking services at low rates.
Conservative Gintarė Skaistė called the bank’s establishment by Seimas’ resolution “the vibration of the air in manipulating people’s feelings, dissatisfaction with commercial banks, or high fees.”
Photo by Julius Kalinskas / 15min / Amber Skaistė
“This entity will not be a traditional bank, (…) therefore, its expectations regarding lower housing interests or service fees are without basis, since it will be more a commercial loan fund, which by its nature has the potential to become a focus of corruption, “said the Seimas member.
Liberal Simonas Gentvilas stated that instead of a “pre-electoral farce”, the rulers had to attract at least one Polish bank to Lithuania during his tenure.
“Both the Prime Minister and the President invited that bank, but the clear answer is why those banks were not established in Lithuania: there are Stasys Jakeliūnas and the demagoguery that you have allowed,” said S. Gentvilas.
Photo by Lukas Balandus / 15min / Simonas Gentvilas
“I ask that the electoral bubbles explode,” he added.
It is proposed to create the State Bank on the basis of state investments and commercial guarantees (Invega), the Public Investment Development Agency or the Agricultural Loan Guarantee Fund that currently operate in the market, since these, according to managers They cannot act as a fully effective alternative to commercial companies operating in Lithuania. banks.
President Gitanas Nausėda also supports the proposal to create a state bank.
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