Ladies and gentlemen

Welcome one and all to Nor-Fishing, an exciting trade fair that is celebrating its 40th anniversary. This is by no means a grand old age when we consider we have a fish exporting tradition in Norway that stretches back around a thousand years. But the forty years since the first official fisheries trade fair in Bergen in 1960 have been a time of enormous change. And if Nor-Fishing is to defend its leading position among fisheries trade fairs, each fair must represent renewal.

On this occasion when we are celebrating Nor-Fishing's first 40 years, and entering a new millennium, we must above all look to the future, but it is also important to remember the history of this trade fair as well. For Norway, these trade fairs date all the way back to 1864, when the first fisheries trade fair was held – in Ålesund. The impetus for this trade fair was first and foremost the wish to improve quality awareness in the industry to better meet market demands. Quality needed to be in focus every step of the way, from when the fish were taken from the sea until delivery. Following this, Norway held a number of international, national and regional fishery trade fairs up until it was decided in the late 1950s to establish an official, Norwegian fisheries trade fair. New technology, quality, nutrition and the market were the main themes of most of these trade fairs.

All this is worth remembering as we step into the new millennium. We are working in an industry that over the last 15 years has developed from subsidiary receivers and low profitability to become Norway's second largest export industry, with an export value – fisheries and aquaculture combined – of NOK 30 billion in 1999.

From within their own areas of expertise, a number of research communities have pointed to the great unrealised potential for increasing value based on marine resources. We must have an active, future-oriented policy for the industry, based on continued sustainable growth, if we are to realize this great potential.

A major part of our efforts to this end will comprise measures to encourage innovation, significantly greater private and public input within marine research and development, modernisation of legislation and regulations, greater efforts in fishery education and recruitment in all sectors of the industry, and measures which will help to strengthen cooperation within the seafood industry.

We must focus on the industry's duties and obligations as users of common resources. The industry uses our common resources, both in terms of area and biomass, and in part harvests its revenues from this use. This means that we can place demands on the industry.

Aquaculture and fisheries both contribute to the total profit in the Norwegian fishing industry, and both can attain important synergies from each other's strong points. Nonetheless, these two sectors require different strategies when the authorities are to determine the framework conditions which will form the foundation for realizing the industry's potential. And it goes without saying that an increase in value and innovation will not come out of the blue – we need to act today so that the value creation in 10 – 20 – 30 years' time can be realized.

In the immediate future, our aquaculture policy must help to ensure that production developments in salmon-farming will reflect market developments. We must establish special measures to facilitate the development of shellfish and species other than salmon and trout in the industry. Such measures will include state-funded venture capital through the Norwegian Business and Regional Development Fund and the Norwegian Research Council. We must cooperate with the environmental authorities and local planning authorities to avoid any bottlenecks in access to the areas in our coastal zones.

Our industrial policy must address the fact that we must contain over-capacity in the processing industry, which also leads to unnecessary capital costs. On the one hand, larger units may improve stability. But these have greater capital costs, and the fluctuations in natural resources mean that flexibility is very important for competitiveness, which is where smaller units have an advantage. Here we have to find new ways to proceed to give us a varied structure in the fishing industry.

When considering the relationship between industry policy and policy for the fishing fleet, the Ministry of Fisheries will continue to rely on the Raw Fish Act and the Participation Act, but the distribution effect of these acts must be studied, and we must review the ownership conditions to assess how we can guarantee local ownership.

I would like here to draw special attention to the problem of over-capacity of the fishing fleet. Both global and national analyses underscore that over-capacity is the main reason for the difficulties fisheries throughout the world are currently experiencing with respect to finding administration regimes which are biologically and economically sustainable. And over-capacity is understood as over-investment.

Several elements are contributing to this over-capacity, but roughly speaking we can mention three main factors: open access to fish, subsidisation and the lack of jurisdiction outside the 200-mile zone. We will continue to work actively in each of these three areas:

It is becoming more and more necessary to restrict access to all the major fisheries. It is necessary to reduce the number of vessels within the various fisheries to improve the basis of operations for each vessel. If anyone claims that restrictions and the possibility of using unit quota schemes will spell the end of the Norwegian fishing industry, I would claim the exact opposite: If we do not come to grips with the over-capacity problem at the national and international level, in the long run the industry will not be able to survive, nor will it be able to provide jobs in the future. This in turn will sound the death knell for the coastal society, as its welfare is based on the harvesting of fish.

We intend to work internationally to remove the subsidisation schemes which encourage over-capacity, and to this end Norway has already actively supported the move to have these concerns addressed in the coming World Trade Organization negotiations. The subsidies not only fuel over-capacity and increase pressure on resources, they also create unfair competition conditions which work against Norway, whose main interest is to maintain the free trade of fish on equal and fair grounds.

We shall continue our efforts through the UN and regional fisheries agreements to close the loopholes that have opened for fishing of migrating stocks outside the 200-mile zones. The use of these loopholes has contributed greatly to the failure of the national fleet-reduction programmes to accomplish anything more than move over-capacity into unregulated fishing. Due to the geographical proximity, the fishing of cod in "Smutthullet" in the Barents sea is the first example that comes to mind. But there are a number of such cases around the globe.

To summarize: It is naive to think that the views many have on development of the value potential in the Norwegian fishing industry – in the Norwegian marine-based industry in its entirety – will materialize out of thin air. We have to act today to achieve results tomorrow. And we must accept that we cannot realize the future in our industries without accepting changes along the way.

Nor-Fishing and the aquaculture trade fair Aqua Nor here in Trondheim can be important arenas in this development work. The role of trade fairs as meeting place, exhibition place and arena for innovation and discussion should be developed further. This year's fair is the most comprehensive ever and I wish both the exhibitors and the arrangers the best of luck.

The central role Nor-Fishing plays is obvious when we see the many prominent representatives from many countries and institutions that are in attendance. I am especially happy that amongst us today is Thami el Khyari, the Moroccan Minister of Fisheries, Jadwiga Berak the Polish State Secretary for fisheries, and their delegations.

And finally, it is my great pleasure to declare Nor-Fishing 2000 officially open.