Your Excellences, ladies and gentlemen
It is a great pleasure for me to welcome you to this dinner tonight.

I would once again like to point out the importance of the good neighbourhood relations between our two countries. Nature has blessed our two countries with significant reserves of natural resources. For centuries Norwegians and Russians have lived peacefully side by side. During the last decade our relations have developed further. From my perspective, a better context for developing further cooperation has never been offered.

This was also emphasised during the visit of President Vladimir Putin to Norway in November 2002. The visit stated our first-class relations, and the potential for further cooperation. Energy issues were put high on the agenda during President Putin's visit. The statement in the joint declaration between the Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Norwegian Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik emphasised the importance of the energy dialog between our two nations. The number of bilateral visits undertaken, both at government level and between representatives of the industry has grown since President Putin's visit.

An important aspect of this dialogue is to promote co-operation between Norwegian and Russian oil and gas companies and the supply industry. In the joint declaration between our two nations, we stated that we will work together to develop the commercial cooperation between Russian and Norwegian companies in the fields of exploration, production, processing and transportation of petroleum. As has been illustrated at the conference we have already good examples of industrial cooperation between our two countries.

It is therefore a great pleasure for me to be present here today. I see this conference as a great development in promoting and sharing Russian and Norwegian experience, competence and technology.

I have been told that the seminar has been inspiring so far. I hope we all can continue this interesting dialog during the dinner, and that we use this opportunity to establish and develop business relations. By this, I would like to propose a toast for further co-operation.