latest embassy news 

Remarks Made by Matthew D. Christ, Economic Officer at the U.S. Embassy in Vilnius during a Press Conference held at the Lithuanian Ministry of Economy on the Tracker Automated Export Control System

April 14, 2000

I am happy to be here today at the Ministry of Economy for the inauguration of the Tracker Automated Export Control System.  Congratulations are certainly in order.  The United States is committed to nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the control of strategic and dual-use materials, and we welcome the Government of Lithuania’s commitment to these same goals as an equal partner in this effort.

The Tracker system is an integral part of this effort.  Tracker facilitates the policy, licensing, enforcement, technical, legal, and security review process on all requests for import, transit, and export of strategic or dual-use materials.  The system is networked to all the ministries involved in the import/transit/export licensing process, and allows for rapid communication and decision-making on requests.  This centralization will allow for greater oversight and control over these requests. 

Over the past two years, the United States has been working with the Ministry of Economy on the implementation of the Tracker system.  The United States government donated the computers, the program software, and the peripherals to the Government of Lithuania, and provided training on the Tracker system. This week, the Tracker Implementation Director Mr. Bob Paulson and Project Engineer Jeremy Durfee completed the installation of the system.  With this installation, Lithuania becomes one of the global leaders in the control of strategic and dual-use materials.

As the press release for this conference noted, Tracker is simply one of the many ways that Lithuania and the United States cooperate in this area.  The Ministry of Economy recently hosted an export control seminar for Lithuanian companies, which was attended by Under Secretary Bunton of the U.S. Department of Commerce.  Later this month, a team from the Wisconsin Project, a U.S. NGO, will arrive to donate a subscription to a global database listing firms involved in illegal traffic in strategic and dual-use materials.  And the United States has donated radiation detectors for use along Lithuania’s borders, to discover transit of radioactive material.

On behalf of the United States government, I would like to again congratulate Lithuania, and particularly the Ministry of Economy, on the implementation of the Tracker system.  Lithuania is a leader in the effort to control the spread of weapons of mass destruction, and we look forward to continuing our excellent cooperation in this field in the future.