Litas

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The Litas (LTL or Lt, Lithuanian plural form Litai) is the official currency of Lithuania. The first time, currency with this name was issued by Bank of Lithuania on 1922-10-22. It was recalled from circulation in 1941 after Lithuania was annexed by Soviet Union in 1940. Presently litas has been in use since 1993-06-25, when it replaced the temporary currency without official name.

Value

From 1993-06-25 to 2002-01-31 the Litas was associated with the US dollar at a ratio of 4 to 1. On 2002-02-01 the Litas was then associated with the Euro at 3.4528 to 1 and this should not change until Litas is replaced by Euro in 2007. Since 28 June 2004 the Litas has been fixed in ERM II [1], the EU's exchange rate mechanism. Lithuania was party to joining the mechanism since joining the EU.

Characteristics

One Litas is divided into 100 cents. All coins have one side with its value printed and the other side with the national coat of arms.

There are 9 denominations of coins:

• 1 cent
• 2 cents
• 5 cents
• 10 cents
• 20 cents
• 50 cents
• 1 litas
• 2 litas
• 5 litas

There are six denominations of Litas notes:

• 10 litas
• 20 litas
• 50 litas
• 100 litas
• 200 litas
• 500 litas

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