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Tue, 30 Dec, 2014 12:00:51 AM
FTimes- Xinhua Report , Dec. 30
 
     
Notes urging users of a disruption of service on automatic teller machines (ATMs) on the New Year's eve have already been pasted. Euros will become Lithuania's national currency and will start to circulate in the Baltic state on January 1, 2015.
     
From 11:00 p.m. (2100 GMT) of Dec. 31, 2014 to 0:05 a.m. of Jan. 1, 2015, workers will replace Litas in ATMs with euros.
     
It is reported that even Algirdas Butkevicius, the Prime Minister, will have to wait for at least 10 minutes after New Year's midnight to cash first euros in a ceremony.
     
Estonian Prime Minister Taavi Roivas and the Minister of Foreign affairs of Latvia Edgaras Rinkevicius will also attend the ceremony.
     
In the week prior to the New Year, at least 3.5 million clients of Lithuanian mobile network users have received messages informing euro adoption and terms of currency exchange, according to the Bank of Lithuania.
   
 All litas can be changed to euros for free in all commercial banks for at least half a year. Litas will be valid in Lithuanian shops for two weeks after the euro adoption, according to the Bank.
     
"We have responsibly prepared for the adoption of the euro, which I believe will be reliable partner in further establishing our welfare," Butkevicius said in his Christmas greeting speech.
     
ALREADY CIRCULATES
     
Yet the Lithuanians have already started using the first Lithuanian euro coins while travelling in Europe.
     
They bought these coins a few weeks ago from Lithuania's Central Bank. These coins, which were designated for the public to get acquainted with the future currency of the country, were spent by Lithuanians in Italy or Latvia.
     
Bank of Lithuania said it did not expect the euro coin starter kits were so popular. In the first week of December, more than 350,000 euro coin starter kits were bought, according to the Bank.
     
"The popularity of the Lithuanian euro coins exceeded expectation, because over the first week alone more than a third of all the kits were purchased," Gintautas Moska, Project Head of the Cash Service of the Bank of Lithuania, said in a statement.
     
EXPECTATIONS ARE HIGH
     
The Lithuanians have high expectations for the benefits brought about by the euro.
     
"Borrowing for us will cost less, and investments will come as well," Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite said in a latest interview with TV broadcaster LNK.
     
Lithuania's central bank says that Lithuanian consumers will see how cross-border transfers in euro and crediting of euro into accounts will drop to the level of the domestic transfers as of Jan. 1, 2015. Its expectations are based on the information from commercial banks operating in Lithuania.
     
"It will not only be much cheaper to transfer to the current 18 euro area Member States, but the countries of the entire European Economic Area (EEA) as well, thus, to Norway, Iceland and Lichtenstein," Marius Jurgilas, member of the Board of Bank of Lithuania, said in a statement.  
     
According to the Bank, the fees of non-express transfers to banks in Lithuania or other EEA countries via the Internet will drop to 0.23 to 0.43 euro (0.28 to 0.52 U.S. dollar). Currently, international transfer in euro costs around 40 litas, or 11.58 euros, with some transfers costing even 60 litas, according to the Bank of Lithuania.
     
Cheaper cross-border transfers in euro next year will save Lithuanian residents and enterprises 80 million litas, or 23 million euros, an equivalent to 0.06 per cent of the country's GDP, according to the bank.
     
DEPOSITS AT RECORD LEVELS
     
To cope with the currency change, Lithuanians have made their own preparations.
     
For the first time, the total amount of deposits at the end of the third quarter exceeded 50 billion litas, reaching 50.3 billion litas, according to the bank of Lithuania.
     
Officials associate the trend to the upcoming change in the currency.
     
"The residents and businesses, in preparing for the euro adoption, heard the call to avoid worries over the cash changeover early next year and are depositing their funds in bank accounts," said Ingrida Simonyte, Deputy Chair of the Board of the Bank of Lithuania and former Finance Minister of Lithuania.
     
"Their money will be converted automatically and free of charge," she added.
     
IMPROVED SENTIMENT
     
Before joining the euro zone, the euro gained the support from the majority of Lithuanians.
     
A survey conducted in mid-November showed 53 percent of Lithuanians view the adoption of euro positively, while 39 percent of the population expressed skeptical view and 8 percent had no opinion.
     
According to the survey, 94 percent of Lithuanians know the irrevocable exchange rate of litas and euro. One euro equals to about 3.45 litas.
     
"The experience of other countries that adopted the euro shows that support for the common European currency grows significantly after the currency's adoption," said Vitas Vasiliauskas, Governor of the Bank of Lithuania.  
 
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