VESTFOLD - KAUNAS

Friendship and cooperation

Vestfold County (Norway) has a partnership agreement with Kaunas City and County (Lithuania) for more than 10 years.

Everything started when back in 1989 Vestfold County Council made a decision to contribute to the democracy building process behind the fallen Iron Curtain. The first contacts between Vestfold and Kaunas took place in 1991 when first delegations from Vestfold came to Lithuania.

The idea to start cooperation was mutually accepted and the Protocol of Intents was signed:

It is symbolic that this document was hand written – Lithuanian at that time was in a very difficult situation and computers were to be found only in universities and large companies.

And Norwegians offered their helping hand – tons of different equipment was donated to hospitals, schools and other institutions in Kaunas. Thousands of books were given to libraries. Lithuania had very little to offer but culture. So, the first cooperation program between Vestfold County and Kaunas City for the period of 1992 – 1993 included the following three fields – health and social care, education and culture.

Norwegian support with equipment and know-how transfer was very valuable to Kaunas, but from the very beginning it was discussed how to make this cooperation more symmetric – both interesting and beneficial for both sides. Then, besides culture exchange, business came into picture.

It was decided to support economic relations between the two regions with the special focus on small and medium sized companies. In order to coordinate all those activities Vestfold Information Centre in Kaunas was established in the end of 1993. And since 1994 cooperation programmes included four fields - health and social care, education, culture and business promotion.

Nowadays business promotion is one of the major activities at Vestfold Information Centre. Lithuania has changed dramatically since 1991. Now it has much more to offer than rich cultural heritage. And it is quite clear that the link between the two countries is as interesting for Lithuania as it is for Norway.