Bioeconomy development in Lithuania: tendencies and drivers

Abstract

The questions investigated by the authors cover definition and coverage of bioeconomy, Lithuanian bioeconomy profile and development tendencies, drivers of Lithuanian bioeconomy strategy as well as the goals and objectives of Lithuanian bioeconomy development. The research is based on various research methods such as general scientific abstraction, analysis and synthesis, content analysis, statistical data analysis, questionnaires, interviews, case studies and others. The data for empirical research was collected from Eurostat, Lithuanian Official Statistics Portal and Joint Research Centre of European Commission. Bioeconomy covers biomass production sectors, fully bio-based transformation and partly bio-based transformation sectors. In 2014, bioeconomy turnover of the EU-28 states totalled about EUR 2.2 trillion. Bioeconomy accounts about 9 percent of the entire EU economy. In terms of bioeconomy turnover per person, Ireland, Finland and Denmark were leaders in 2014. In Lithuania bioeconomy turnover per person was lower than the EU-28 average. In 2015, more than two thirds of turnover in Lithuanian bioeconomy was generated in the food sector, and slightly more than a fourth — in the forest biomass-based sector, where turnover of manufacture of bio-based textiles, apparel and leather as well as bio-based chemicals and pharmaceuticals was a bit more than a tenth. 17.6 percent of persons were employed in bioeconomy in Lithuania in 2015. Location quotient revealed that considering gross value added the concentration of Lithuania both in biomass production and fully bio-based transformation sector compared to the entire EU was 2.4 in 2014. Lithuania was among the leading EU countries in terms of bioeconomy growth in all subsectors of biomass production and fully bio-based manufacturing between 2010 and 2014. ... [et al.]