Planning practice of industrial parks in Lithuania by the measures of country development level of infrastructure

Abstract

One of the most important objects of Lithuania is to create a more efficient economy and raise labor productivity. Industrial park territories are being developed for such a purpose. The creation of industrial parks requires significant investments in its construction. More than 56 million euros, from the budget of the country and European Union support, have been already invested in the development of these zones in Lithuania. Such amounts would not be significant if these territories would achieve its' goals, which is mainly to attract major investors. However, there are many proofs of such investment projects failure in Lithuania and even more around the world. From the scientific point of view, there are many kinds of researches on the topic of industrial zones, but it still lacks the answers, why one projects thrive, and others fail to succeed. This work aims to analyze the spatial planning features of the existing industrial parks of regions of Lithuania in the context of the development level of country infrastructure. In this context, we question the rationality of the spatial position for some of these zones. The object of the research is industrial parks and free economic zones in the Republic of Lithuania. In this article, using statistical and spatial analysis (GIS) methods, we assess the infrastructure development level of industrial zones in Lithuania. We compare different industrial parks and their infrastructure development level, as well as how industrial parks are changing, i.e., expanding or diminishing. The results prove that in the context of Lithuania, free economic zones type is more successful than industrial parks. The paper provides insights into the development of industrial park territories.