VILNIUS, April 26 (Xinhua) -- Lithuania ratified the EU-Canadian free trade agreement CETA (the Comprehensive Economic and Trade agreement) with the country's president Dalia Grybauskaite putting the final signature on the legislation on Thursday.
Lithuania has become the ninth EU country ratifying the treaty which, according to the president, is "one of the EU's largest free trade agreements".
"This agreement will help Lithuanian exporters save more than 1 million euros of customs duty every year," said the President's Office in its announcement, noting that it would be particularly helpful to the country's small and medium enterprises (SME).
Currently, around 150 Lithuanian companies sell goods to Canada, 80 percent of them are SMEs, according to the President's Office.
The president approved the legislation ratifying CETA two days after Lithuanian parliament's decision to ratify the agreement, though the whole ratification process at the Lithuanian parliament took eight months.
The Lithuanian parliament ratified CETA with separate statement on food and safety issues. Lithuanian lawmakers are concerned about regulation of GMO's and trade of meat produced using hormones. Similar precautionary statements were made by the European Commission and the European Union member states during the signing of CETA.
The EU and Canada signed the free trade agreement in October 2016. According to CETA, both trading sides will fully eliminate tariffs on more than 99 percent of all tariff lines. (1 euro = 1.21 U.S. dollars)