On March 1, Lithuania numbered 647,000 residents with restored ownership rights to 3.61 million hectares of once-nationalised land for sale in Lithuania. This accounts for slightly more than 88 percent of all delivered applications.

Kazys Maksvytis, the director general for the National Land Service at the Agriculture Ministry, revealed that land restoration in rural areas had most advanced in the regions of Telsiai and Marijampole. In these regions the rate of restored land is more than 95 percent of total. By contrast, the reform has been lagging strongly in the south-eastern Vilnius County, according to state officials.

The authorities, too, admit stalled restoration of the ownership rights in cities. At the moment 58,000 residents are applying for 65,000 ha of land in cities.

Since the land reform got underway in the Baltic country, the state authorities have adopted over 15,000 decisions on returning land in-kind, and 9,600 decisions on giving gratuitously new land lots for construction of private houses in cities.

Maksvytis has commented that continued amendments to the laws on land reform and restitution have slowed down the reform. The law on the land reform has been modified 18 times, while that on restoration of ownership rights to existing real property - 29 times.

During year 2003, the National Land Service received requests from law enforcement and other bodies to investigate 718 land restitution cases on suspicions of alleged fraud.

The country still has to restore ownership rights to 0.5 million hectares of land and forests for the residents.