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$Unique_ID{COW02684}
$Pretitle{436}
$Title{Norway
High tide for Norwegian exports}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Jon-Age Oyslebo}
$Affiliation{Embassy of Norway, Washington DC}
$Subject{norwegian
industry
percent
industries
norway
norway's
production
companies
million
products}
$Date{1990}
$Log{Leading the Sheep*0268402.scf
}
Country: Norway
Book: Fact Sheets on Norway
Author: Jon-Age Oyslebo
Affiliation: Embassy of Norway, Washington DC
Date: 1990
High tide for Norwegian exports
"What do you actually live off here?" tourists to Norway often ask when
they look out over beautiful, but often decidedly rocky and unfarmable areas.
Oil and gas, yes. And possibly other natural resource-based industries such
as fishing and forestry. But high tech industries and modern export products?
Nope, not in Norway.
The perceptions foreigners have of Norway's economy is hardly uplifting
reading for Norwegians who believe that people in other countries have great
faith in Norwegian industry. In a recent survey conducted by Time Magazine,
only 18 percent of the 5,000 European readers polled believed that Norway has
technologically advanced products.
Nevertheless, world demand for Norwegian industrial products, especially
those that have undergone a sophisticated manufacturing process, is
unprecedented.
This has been a tremendous boom to the Norwegian economy. The austerity
measures introduced over the past few years strangled growth in private
consumption and led to a domino-like round of cutbacks, sackings, and
bankruptcies in that sector of the economy that produces for the home market.
The healthy and prolonged high tide in exports was thus made to order.
The result of the export boom is manifested in Norway's balance of
accounts: an expected current account deficit of 1.5 thousand million US
dollars in 1989 has, in six months' time, been turned around into a predicted
surplus of 1.8 thousand million USD, according to the Government's revised
national budget.
What the accounts will show at the end of this year is however uncertain.
Natural resources and technology
The reason for these widely diverging predictions can be found in one of
the many distinctive characteristics of Norwegian industry: the wide
fluctuations in export prices for important products.
Ever since the first shaky attempts at industrialization in Norway, the
country's natural resources - ore and minerals, lumber, fish and gradually
also oil and gas - have served as an important foundation for Norwegian
activity. Instead of exporting commodities as they were, large sectors of
industry have been built up around the processing of raw materials, based on
access to cheap electricity from Norway's abundant waterfalls. Norwegian
industry gradually developed unique manufacturing technology, which has made
it possible for Norwegian suppliers to easily compete with countries with
lower cost levels, but with less advanced technology.
It is first and foremost these traditional industries that are now
increasing their exports. This applies, among others, to the producers of
metals, ferroalloys, paper and pulp and chemicals, which have all had to
crank up production to satisfy the demand. Metallurgical exports in the first
quarter of 1989 totalled nearly 1.3 thousand million USD, around 40 percent
more than in the same period last year. The demand for aluminium and nickel
is especially heavy.
According to Ministry of Industry predictions, the export industries will
increase their production by 2 percent this year and 1.5 percent in 1990. The
strongest hike has been registered by the metallurgical industry, which grew
8.2 percent from 1987 to 1988. The paper and pulp sector, having experienced
strong, demand and good prices for four years, noted a more modest 0.5 percent
increase in production from 1987 1988.
For this and next year the Ministry of Industry predicts more moderate
growth in metals and paper and pulp, while the chemicals industry is expected
to see rising demand for its products.
Combined with higher oil prices and a higher dollar, these traditional
manufacturing industries are responsible for the gigantic turnaround in the
external economy.
Dependency
Natural resources are therefore obviously a blessing for Norway. But in
many ways the concentration on them, has, too, become Norway's curse.
One characteristic manufactured products such as paper, cellulose,
ferroalloys and aluminium have in common is that the price foreign markets are
willing to pay for them is not always predictable. The same applies to oil and
gas. Markets are cyclical, is the usual laconic comment. Sometimes they go up,
sometimes down.
Particularly exposed in this respect is the oil industry, with the
consequences these cycles have for the entire Norwegian economy. When the
existence of commercially exploitable reserves of oil on the Norwegian
Continental Shelf was confirmed in the late 1960s, it was stressed early on
that oil revenues must not hinder necessary investments in mainland industry.
Norway's economic basis was not to become captive to fluctuating oil prices.
The fact that this still happened was clearly demonstrated when prices
fell dramatically a few years ago. In its recent report to Parliament on
industrial policy, the Government concluded: "...Up until 1985-86 Norway
adjusted its production on the basis of continued high prices for oil."
The impact of oil and gas production varies widely. In 1988, this sector
accounted for 8.3 percent of the gross national product (GNP), or 6.9 thousand
million USD. Other industries contributed 16.2 percent of the GNP - 13.5
thousand million USD. In 1985; the situation was the reverse: oil and gas
accounted for 18.5 percent of GNP (13 thousand million USD), while the rest
combined for 14 percent (9.8 thousand million).
The export industries are vulnerable to extreme shifts in the market.
Good times are replaced by bad. For the moment, the picture is bright, but the
long-term view is uncertain.
Today, the Government is trying as best it can to create the proper
conditions so that production and profits can also increase in those sectors
exposed to international competition that have escaped the boom in the
traditional export industries. Stringent wage regulation two years in a row,
increased appropriations for research and development and an emphasis on
education and infrastructure are buzzwords in this connection. But experience
shows that restructuring takes time. In its long-term programme, the
Government admitted that the transfer effect to the competitively exposed
industries had been "less than desired".
Competence
Far from all industry in Norway is based on raw materials. The country
supplies both itself and foreign markets with a wide spectrum of products,
from tinned goods and soap to advanced data-based control systems. Every
branch has its success story, and its special technology, and contributes to
the creation of both wealth and employment.
Something that nevertheless sets Norwegian industry apart are those
activities that are based on Norway's topographical conditions and on
activities on the Continental Shelf. Up through time, fjords, mountains and
oceans have posed major challenges for engineers which they have had to
master. As a result, Norwegian engineering companies have long been able to
offer internationally recognized competence and technological solutions when
it comes to, among others, construction of power stations and dams, tunnels
and bridges.
The exploitation of petroleum reserves in the North Sea has also been a
driving force behind the development of a high level of competence and
advanced technology in Norwegian industry. As orders for large ships placed
with Norwegian shipyards declined, more and more of their activities have
become directed towards offshore technology. Many yards quickly switched to
building rigs, permanent ins