Norway ends up in a clear last place when it comes to trade with other countries, one shows recent report from Menon Economics.
The report has been commissioned by the heavyweights of working life, LO and NHO, in collaboration with the state-owned company Eksportkreditt.
LO leader Peggy Hessen Følsvik is worried about the conclusions:
– This is a brutally honest and important report. It paints a picture of a gloomy situation, she says to Børsen.
Rekordgap
Menon reveals and documents a dramatic decline in Norwegian exports in recent years. Norway’s export gap – ie the difference in values of what we sell and buy in trade with other countries – has never been greater than now.
Furthermore, it is pointed out that Norway has had a weaker development in recent years than all countries with which it is natural to compare itself.
- Figures from the World Bank show that measured in euros, dollars and fixed prices, all our closest neighbors have had greater export growth than Norway in recent years.
- Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands and Belgium have grown faster than Norway – regardless of whether the value of exports of oil and gas is included in the calculation or whether it is excluded.
- No other country in the OECD or in the BRICS countries has lost global market share as quickly as Norway in the last 20 years.
- Norway is left with Western Europe’s lowest exports as a share of our total value creation (GDP).
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Started before the pandemic
Also a year ago could The stock market tell of a gloomy export report from the same consulting company. You can read that case here:
Norway is slaughtered at all points
The government responded by appointing a committee, and then create a new player which will work to promote Norwegian companies abroad.
This move was taken even though the previous report pointed out that “too many actors with partly overlapping mandates” were an important part of the problem.
The prehistory means that the LO leader finds reason to point to the following:
– We see a dramatic fall over time for Norwegian exports. We’re in the jumbo seat. And this did not start with the pandemic. After 20 years of continuous trading profits, the trend was broken in 2017, says Peggy Hessen Følsvik.
– Incredibly important
The recent report states that Norwegian export growth has been close to zero since the financial crisis in 2008. In the same period, all countries around us have experienced significant growth in their export industries.
Then you can ask: Why is this important, why care?
Otto Søberg, CEO of Eksportkreditt, formulates the following answer:
– Norwegian companies exported for NOK 1,100 billion in 2020. This lays the foundation for around 560,000 employees in Norway, corresponding to every fifth Norwegian workplace. This shows how incredibly important the export companies are for value creation and employment in Norway.
HAST: We are lagging behind, the value of oil and gas is falling and it is starting to hurry, alarms Export Credit top Otto Søberg. Photo: Fredrik Varfjell / NTB
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Or to put it another way: How much we export is a measure of Norway’s competitiveness. A Norway that fails to increase its export volume is a Norway where the business community is lagging behind.
Søberg formulates the following clear warning:
– There is a need for a concrete and ambitious export strategy, with clear goals that the business community, the employee side and the authorities jointly develop. From the mid-2020s, revenues from oil and gas are expected to fall. So it’s starting to rush.
Overall plan
LO and NHO do not have a good time either.
Yara’s CEO Svein Tore Holsether, who was elected as the new president of NHO earlier this month, is calling for clear plans:
COLLECTION: NHO President Svein Tore Holsether wants a plan for a joint effort for increased Norwegian exports. Photo: Terje Pedersen / NTB
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– Norway has unique opportunities to create a profitable green export industry. But then we must make a plan for joint efforts that triggers this potential, says Holsether in a joint press release from Eksportkreditt, LO and NHO.
He points to the EU’s green growth strategy Green Deal, where the goal is to trigger public and private sustainable investments of up to 1,000 billion euros by 2030 to achieve the ambitious cut targets for greenhouse gases.
– Here there can be great opportunities for Norway, if we manage to readjust, says Holsether.
– The development must turn around, and it is urgent, agrees LO leader Peggy Hessen Følsvik.
The stock exchange has asked both Prime Minister Erna Solberg (H) and Minister of Trade and Industry Iselin Nybø (V) how Norway can lag so far behind. None of them had time to answer on Monday.
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