Tomas Jaskelevičius, the chairman of the Board of UAB “Progresyvūs verslo sprendimai” (Progressive Business Solutions), was elected as the president of the association LINPRA for the two-year term of office of the Lithuanian engineering industry. According to the newly adopted LINPRA head, the association would not only contribute to the improvement of the business environment and the promotion of exports, but would also help the engineering companies to create higher value-added products and establish themselves among European leaders.

“In recent years, we are witnessing a breakthrough in the Lithuanian engineering industry and growing investment in technological efficiency. However, international competition is also growing, and the output of many companies in this sector is yet to reach a higher added value. Therefore, together with the renewed Association’s leadership, we will strive to promote the competitiveness of the domestic engineering industry and help our companies to reach better positions in the European industrial supply chain. Both, the changing competitive environment and the fourth industrial revolution, mean new challenges for our companies, and LINPRA is ready to help them,” says T. Jaskelevičius.

According to him, although the Lithuanian engineering industry is increasingly recognized as an intelligent and reliable partner in the world, but to their customers they do not yet sell the final product that could be used immediately. Therefore, special attention is needed to change this situation. In addition, the Association’s priorities will continue to be the promotion of business-science partnerships and improvement of the working conditions, improvement of the quality of training of qualified specialists and improvement of education.

The newly elected Presidium and Vice Presidents were elected in the general assembly of LINPRA members, which took place in Vilnius on May 12. For the next two years, Kęstutis Jasiūnas, General Manager of Ekspla, and Arnoldas Šileika, General Director of the Western Shipyard, were re-elected as vice presidents. Also to act as a vice president, LINPRA members have entrusted Gintautas Kvietkauskas, the director of UAB Arginta Group, and the previous president of LINPRA.

“Several recent breakthroughs have taken place – the general Lithuanian engineering industry has grown and the association’s activities have expanded, influence has increased, and leadership has grown. If the engineering industry had been left behind in the margins of public attention, today we can firmly say that we are becoming more and more alert, our needs are taken into account, our aspirations are appreciated and recognized. I believe that the new Presidium of the Association and its executives will continue to successfully use the existing work results that have been reached so far, use all available means and continue their activities in the right direction, maintain and strengthen the influence of the engineering industry sector,” said G. Kvietkauskas, who has been chairing the association for the last four years.

LINPRA members have also appointed the Director of the Association. These responsibilities have been entrusted to Darius Lasionis, manager of the Baltic Automotive Components Cluster (BACC) and Plastics Cluster. D. Lasionis took over the position of director of the association from Gintaras Vilda, the present vice minister of economy of Lithuania.

The Lithuanian Engineering Industry Association LINPRA unites over 90 members. An independent self-governing organization represents the interests of its members, working in metal, machinery and equipment, plastics, electrotechnology and electronics sectors on national and international scale.

The turnover of the sector represented by the association in 2017 reached 3.8 billion euro. More than 70 % of Lithuanian manufacturing industry output is exported.