VILNIUS — Lithuania’s foreign trade deficit, a legacy of the “Baltic Tiger” boom in the resource-poor country, hit its narrowest amount this year so far as exports increased and imports decreased in May.

According to the country’s central statistics bureau, in May 2010 compared to April 2010, exports increased by 5.5 percent while imports decreased by 6.4 percent. However year-on-year both exports and imports are up 42.3 and 24 percent respectively.

Meanwhile the Klaipėda port traffic continues at a record pace with Belarusian cargo and Russia continues to be the dominant trade partner despite Lithuania’s European Union membership.

The trend is being mirrored in the other Baltic states — analysts say that all three of the countries will be led out of the crisis by their predominantly Northern and Eastern European trade partners’ demand picking up and exports increasing. In non-seasonally adjusted data, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania saw their exports for the first quarter of 2010 grow by 17, 14 and 11 percent respectively, Eurostat reported.

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