Migrant workers prompt postal boom

The large number of migrants from Lithuania working overseas are responsible for a boom in the country’s postal service, Lietuvos Paštas has confirmed.

Since Lithuania became a member of the European Union, the amount of international letters, postcards, and small parcels has grown hugely, with the most traffic coming from Great Britain, Ireland and Spain, where the majority of Lithuanian currently live and work.

By the end of 2006 the amount of outgoing mail correspondence to Great Britain had increased by more than 220 percent and stood at 96.13 tons per year, accounting for more than a quarter of outgoing correspondence, and the amount of incoming mail had improved by 25 percent to 60.1 tons per year.

Last year, the volume of outgoing parcels to Ireland had increased by 39 percent to 23.9 percent, the amount of incoming parcels from Ireland had gone up by 18 percent to 12.9 tons.

Communication with Lithuanians in Spain is livelier than ever, as well. In 2006, the amount of mail sent from Spain to Lithuania was as much as 23 times greater than in 2004 (6.6 tons), and the volume of outgoing correspondence to Spain had risen by 26.1 percent to 5.86 tons.

In 2006, the Lithuanian post office delivered 5.9 million items or 457.25 tons of foreign mail to addresses in Lithuania, and the amount of outgoing mail from Lithuania stood at 4.73 million items or 369.1 tons.