The more important question is what you export - and how much value you create along the way.
This distinction becomes particularly interesting when looking at Lithuania and the Netherlands. Both are relatively small, open European economies with strong international ambitions and a heavy dependence on access to global markets. Yet their positions in Europe’s high-tech export landscape are very different.
In 2025, high-tech products accounted for around 10.5% of Lithuania’s total goods exports, compared with 23.1% in the Netherlands. The EU average stood at approximately 16.6%. Measured as a share of total EU high-tech goods exports, the difference is even more striking: Lithuania represented around 0.3%, while the Netherlands accounted for approximately 18%.
At first glance, the numbers suggest a significant gap. But for us at Benelux Baltics in Business, that gap raises a much more interesting question than the ranking itself:
What could happen if the Baltics’ growing technological capabilities were connected more systematically with the mature industrial, commercial and investment ecosystems of the Benelux?
Lithuania may still sit below the EU average in terms of the high-tech intensity of its goods exports, but the direction of travel is encouraging. According to Lithuania’s Innovation Agency, the country’s high-tech goods exports reached €2.4 billion in 2025, increasing by 7.2% compared with 2024.
Looking over a longer period makes the transformation even clearer. Over the past five years, Lithuania’s high-tech goods exports grew by an average of 18.6% per year, with electronics, computers and optical products among the areas showing particularly strong expansion.
This matters because Lithuania’s long-term export opportunity is not simply about selling more goods abroad. It is about increasing the amount of knowledge, technology, engineering and intellectual property embedded in what the country exports.
For smaller economies, competing internationally on volume alone is difficult. Competing through specialisation, expertise and higher-value products creates a very different path to growth.
The Netherlands offers a useful reference point — not as a model Lithuania should simply copy, but as an example of what a mature international business ecosystem can enable. High-tech products represent more than one fifth of Dutch goods exports.
Behind those numbers sits an ecosystem connecting research institutions, specialised suppliers, advanced manufacturing, international companies, investors, logistics infrastructure and global markets. Some of Europe’s most sophisticated technology value chains operate within this environment.
There is, however, an important statistical caveat. Eurostat notes that high-tech export statistics include re-exported goods. For a major European trading and logistics hub such as the Netherlands, this can significantly increase reported export figures. An 18% share of EU high-tech exports therefore does not mean that 18% of Europe’s high-tech products are manufactured in the Netherlands.
But that does not make the Dutch position less interesting. In many ways, it reinforces the point: the Netherlands has become exceptionally effective at connecting technology, companies, capital and international markets.
For Baltic businesses looking to scale internationally, those connections can be as important as the size of the market itself.
The opportunity is not to reproduce the Dutch economy in Lithuania. Lithuania has its own strengths. Its engineering and technology sectors have expanded rapidly, while electronics and telecommunications equipment, scientific instruments and electrical equipment have contributed to the growth of high-tech exports.
The composition of those exports has also become more diversified over time. That diversification matters because a resilient export economy cannot depend indefinitely on a small number of products or industries. A broader base of specialised, higher-value products creates more opportunities for Lithuanian companies to participate in international value chains.
The real opportunity, therefore, may lie in connecting complementary strengths. The Baltics bring strong technical talent, increasingly sophisticated technology companies, competitive engineering capabilities and an entrepreneurial culture. The Benelux economies bring mature international business networks, established industrial clusters, capital, access to large corporate ecosystems and decades of experience commercialising technology globally.
Those strengths are highly complementary.
And this is where the relationship between the two regions becomes particularly interesting.
Lithuania’s overall goods exports reached €36.9 billion in 2025. But export success should not be measured by volume alone. The more important long-term question is how much knowledge, intellectual property, technology and specialised expertise is embedded in what leaves the country.
For Lithuania, the next stage of export growth may therefore be less about simply increasing the number of products crossing its borders and more about increasing the value contained within them. That requires innovation, but innovation alone is not enough.
A technology can be excellent and still struggle to become an international business. Commercialisation, access to customers, capital, partnerships, distribution and integration into international value chains all matter.
And this is precisely where stronger connections between Baltic capabilities and Benelux ecosystems could create value on both sides.
The Netherlands should not be viewed simply as another export destination for Baltic companies. It can also serve as an entry point into European industrial ecosystems, international distribution networks, investors, technology partners and corporate value chains.
For a Lithuanian technology or engineering company, entering the Dutch market can therefore mean more than acquiring Dutch customers. It can mean becoming connected to a much wider international ecosystem.
The opportunity also works in the opposite direction. Dutch and other Benelux companies have increasing reasons to look towards the Baltics for engineering expertise, technology development, specialised manufacturing and innovative business partners. One region does not need to become the other; the more interesting question is what they can build by connecting their respective strengths.
Lithuania’s high-tech exports are growing. Its export structure is gradually becoming more sophisticated, and technology-intensive industries are playing a larger role. The Netherlands, meanwhile, demonstrates the power of an ecosystem capable of connecting specialised expertise with international capital, companies and markets.
So perhaps the question is not: How can Lithuania become more like the Netherlands?
It is: How can Lithuania combine its own strengths with the experience, networks and ecosystems already present in markets such as the Netherlands?
The next chapter of Baltic export growth may not be written by scale alone. It may be written through better connections - between technology and capital, engineering and commercialisation, Baltic capabilities and Benelux markets.
That is where the Benelux–Baltics relationship becomes more than a trade corridor. It becomes an opportunity to build value together.
Sources: Eurostat, International Trade in Goods / High-tech industry and knowledge-intensive services statistics; Innovation Agency Lithuania (Inovacijų agentūra).
