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Mar 11 2010 by Jez Davison, Evening Gazette

NCC is seeking ways of boosting trade between Norway and North-east England after figures showed a huge trade imbalance between the two areas.

In the year to last September, Norway exported £604m of goods to the North-east while amounts traded in the opposite direction totalled just £107m.

The UK-Norway trade deficit during the same period is even heavier at £15.5bn to £2.7bn.

NCC’s Mike Pedersen said: “I think North-east companies are missing a trick here.

“Norwegian companies can see a need to expand into the North-east, yet we can’t see the benefit of doing business in Norway. Horses and water come to mind!”

He said Norway was short of manpower for key projects in the oil and gas, sub-sea and renewable energy sectors - a gap which could be filled by tapping into skilled labour on the west side of the North Sea.

It seems that Teesside firms are not taking the bait, though.

Not one person attended NCC’s Doing Business With Norway session at the recent Business Exchange North East conference.

NOF Energy the region’s trade body for the oil and gas sector, said it was working to break down perceptions in the North-east that Norway was a “closed shop”.

Joanne Leng, director business development at NOF Energy, said: “The reality is different. It’s our closest export market for oil and gas and possibly offshore wind too.”

The organisation said it had received around 40 expressions of interest in a trade mission to the Bergen, Hammerfest and Trondheim regions of Norway in April.