Minister of the Economy and Innovation Aušrinė Armonaitė met with Taiwan’s Minister of Digital Affairs Audrey Tang in Vilnius on Wednesday. During the meeting, the ministers focused on the implementation of joint projects in the fields of digital literacy, financial technology and innovation in the public sector, and digitisation. 

„Cooperation with our partners in Taiwan is gaining momentum. We are now not only offering our companies’ services to the Taiwanese market, but also investing together in the future of our country – improvement of children’s digital literacy and strengthening of the fundamentals of computer science. The biggest benefit of such meetings is that they allow us to effectively identify areas that both sides find most promising and attractive,” said Minister of the Economy and Innovation Ms Armonaitė.  

During the visit, a Letter of Intent (LoI) was signed between the Innovation Agency and Taiwan regarding cooperation in enhancing digital skills of students and teachers in Lithuanian regions. It also provides for talent exchanges and internship programmes to enable young professionals to gain international experience in leading technology innovation companies.

One of the objectives of the LoI is to ensure that all children in Lithuania acquire digital and IT skills, regardless of their gender, location and socio-economic background. 

„Taiwan’s help in strengthening the digital skills of teachers in the regions is highly useful. Digitalisation of education is one of our country’s priorities right now. Lithuania is investing its own and EU funds in this area, and will soon launch a programme to improve teachers’ digital competences and develop digital teaching tools. I hope that the cooperation with Taiwan in this area will only strengthen,” said Jurgita Šiugždinienė, Minister of Education, Science and Sport, on the signing of the Letter of Intent. 

This is facilitated by the programme Vedliai, which is used by teachers to combine everyday lessons with innovative, creative computing practices: virtual reality, 3D modelling, artificial intelligence and more. The programme has so far involved 4,600 primary school teachers and over 80,000 children from 570 schools in Lithuania. 

„We hope that the partnership between Taiwan and Lithuania will help us involve around 50,000 more pupils in grades 1-8 in Lithuanian regions and thus increase access and availability of computer science skills to 50% of pupils in this age group throughout Lithuania,” says Monika Katkutė – Gelžinė, Founder and CEO of Vedliai. 

The meeting discussed progress in the implementation of previous agreements and opportunities for Lithuania and Taiwan to participate in trilateral projects, such as the deployment of advanced information and communication technologies in third countries or other projects. 

According to the Minister, one example of trilateral cooperation could be the reconstruction of war-affected Ukraine: Lithuania has more experience in the country’s construction sector and a better understanding of the market, while Taiwan could help Ukraine with the introduction of computer equipment and the digitisation of the public sector. 

The development of mutual economic relations is supported by the fact that the Trade Representative of the Republic of Lithuania started working in Taipei in September 2022 and the Lithuanian Trade Representative Office in Taipei was officially opened on 7 November 2022. 

In November last year, Litilit, a Lithuanian laser company raised EUR 3.5 million from Taiwanese venture capital fund Taiwania Capital. This is the fund’s first investment in Central and Eastern Europe.