The present study was prepared in the third quarter of 1999 as a background study to a Conference organised by the OECD Committee on International Investment and Multinational Enterprises (CIME), in collaboration with the Centre for Co-operation with Non-Members and with the support of the Estonian Investment Agency, on the subject of "Foreign Direct Investment Policy and Private Sector Development in the Baltic States". This event took place in Tallinn on 17 November 1999. Its objective was to provide an overall assessment of the contribution of foreign direct investment (FDI) to the economic transformation of the three Baltic states since their independence in 1991-1992. The conference was one of the main activities organised in 1999 under the auspices of the OECD Baltic Regional Programme. Within the framework of the same programme, it was followed up by a Conference on Fiscal Incentives and Competition for Foreign Direct Investment in Vilnius in Spring 2000 organised in ...

On 11 March 1990, the Supreme Council adopted the Provisional Basic Law of the Republic of Lithuania, which was viewed as the constitution, thereby suspending the former constitution of 12 May 1938. However, the Provisional Basic Law was only a constitutional Act of a transitional character; it did not change the structure of state power, and not all of the institutions characteristic of a democratic state were re-established. The Provisional Basic Law remained in force until the autumn of 1992. On 25 October 1992 citizens voted in a referendum to approve the constitution of the Republic of Lithuania, which re-established all the traditional state institutions, i.e. the Seimas, the presidency, the government, and the judiciary. In addition, the constitution introduced some new institutions to support the democratic functioning of the state, including the constitutional court, the ombudsman, and the state control department. The constitutional court's status and procedures for executing its powers are established by the Law on the Constitutional Court of Lithuania, which the parliament adopted on 3 February 1993. The constitution also introduced the principle of independence for local governments.