VILNIUS, Oct. 25 (Xinhua) -- Restaurants, hotels, and cafes across Lithuania are preparing to protest in Vilnius next Thursday over rising taxes, with similar demonstrations planned in Estonia and Latvia simultaneously, according to the Baltic News Service (BNS) on Friday.
Evalda Siskauskiene, head of the Lithuanian Association of Hotels and Restaurants, which is organizing the protest in Lithuania, said that hospitality sector representatives would gather outside the government building in Vilnius.
In the first eight months of this year, revenues of Lithuanian restaurants, cafes, and other food service providers fell by 7.3 percent year-on-year to 1.056 billion euros (1.14 billion U.S. dollars), excluding VAT, according to official statistics.
The VAT rate for food service establishments was reduced to 9 percent in July 2021 to help businesses affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, and it was raised back to the standard 21 percent at the start of this year.
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