Dear collegues, ladies and gentlemen,

First of I would like to forward greetings and best wishes for the Conference from the Norwegian Minister of Regional Development, Ms Sylvia Brustad. She also asked me to forward her appologies for not being able to attend the meeting today.

On behalf of the Norwegian Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development I would also very much express my appreciation to the organisers of this conference. Scotland and Norway are two neighbouring countries facing common potentials and challenges for regional development and co-operation.

Co-operation between Scotland and Norway builds on ahistory of cultural and social ties. But before the 1990s, there was no formal co-operation in the field of regional development. The Scottish-Nordic co-operation within this field started with the enlargement-process of the European Union with Austria, Finland, Sweden and Norway. In the process for preparing for the enlargement there were close and increasing contact between Nordic and Scottish Officials on EU regional policy issues.

The formalisation of this process started at the joint Ackergill conference in northern Scotland in October 1994 attended by senior government officials from Scotland, Finland, Norway, Sweden and Iceland. The meeting concluded to create an operational network in the field of regional development. The meeting confirmed the great commonalities of interests between the nordic countries and Scotland. Areas of action were also discussed. And I have been explained that these included co-operation in the development of SME’s (Small and Mediumsized Enterprises) within peripheral economies, further to promote the use and development of the new information technology in peripheral areas, networking among universities and development of forestry networks. Funding for these kinds of activities were later given trough the Nordic Council of Ministers and the Scottish Executive.

The Scottish-Nordic co-operation has been evaluated and given positive conclusion. According to the evaluation the co-operation has proved its value at both policy and project levels. There are great supports among all kinds of participants of continuing the Scottish-Nordic co-operation.

In 1997 we got the Joint Article 10 Programme "The Northern Periphery" which all of you is familiar with. Within the framework of this programme the co-operation has been further developed. More than thirty projects have been funded from this programme. And from a Norwegian point of view it is of great importance to further strengthen the co-operation when this programme will be developed into an Interreg IIIB-programme for the period 2001-2006.

As you all know Norway did not join the European Union after the national referendum in 1994. But that doesn’t mean that Norway should not participate in cross-border and transnational co-operation with Member States. Norway is participating in nine different Interreg IIA and Interreg IIC programmes. And the Norwegian government is positive to continue participating in Interreg III. The fact that three Nordic countries are now members of the EU opens up the prospect of a new generation of Nordic co-operation.In this relation Norway also very much appreciate and welcome Iceland, Greenland and the Fareo-Islands as new partners in the Interreg IIIB "Northern Periphery"-programme.

And I am sure that the new programme will contribute to find common solutions to common challenges in these northern regions.

The overall objective for the existing programme is to contribute to the improvement of services and value creation in northern areas of Finland, Scotland, Sweden and Norway. The programme is focused on the development of new knowledge about innovative and effective solutions for sustainable business activity, public and private service provision and exchange of good practises and experiences. Enterprises, public organisations, educational institutes and others have applied for funding for pilot projects related to these topics. And I know that all the participating countries have agreed to continue with this type of objectives and priorities also in the new programme. This will be further elaborated later today.

Finally I would like to emphasise on the main strategies and objectives of Norwegian regional policy and focus shortly on which challenges and potential we face in our national regional policy.

The overall and main objective of our regional policy is to maintain the settlement structure throughout the country. But at the same time we realise that this objective is difficult to reach at municipal level. The objective is rather to establish and contribute activly with national measures promoting competitiveness among regional and local based businesses. In other words municipalities must be developed to become realistic and attractive locations both for people and businesses. With equal opportunities all over the country we also promote more robustness regions.

In may this year the Minister of Regional Policy presented the governmental regional policy strategy for the Parliament (The Storting). She emphasised three main items of Norwegian regional policy:

The first item is directed towards robust regions – where the interrelationship between both bigger and smaller urban centras and its surroundings are focused.

The second item focuses on the developing more competitive regional businesses through innovation and competence.

The third item is renewal of the public sector where we emphasise an overall co-ordinated and cohesive public sector.

These main strategies will be further elaborated in connction to the governmental white paper on regional policy which will be submitted to the parliament next spring.

The government gives high priority to develop strong regions with optimal services, housing conditions and balanced labour markets throughout the country. We see stronger regions as the main strategy to combat centralisation and a strengthen local self governance.

A more competitive and future oriented businesses are dependent of continuesly copmetence support to survive in a growing global competitiveness. Development of new and more competence-intencive industries together with development of the existing industry are among the most important strategies within our regional policies.

The public sector have an important role in developing regional innovation. Therefore the government gives high priority to research and education. One of the main measures to reach these goals are promoting further are establishing socalled industrial parks. These parks should be attractive for youth and higher educated personell. In this relation we emphasise the importance of good co-operation between educational institutions and the industry. We also have women as a target group for self establishment in this relation. Measures to reach these goals are both personel and business oriented.

Renewal of the public sector is also of great importance. The government has started a programme to establish public service offices in the peripheries. 50 municipalities are participating in this programme. The main focuses in these programme is to promote the posibilities there are in using new technology. Experiences from this work is also a good basis for developing transnational co-operation projects.

The government is also working on renewing the overall division of labour between the national, regional and local level. There has recently been submitted a green paper on these issues, and the government will submit a white paper to the parliament also next spring. The outcome of this process is also of great importance for the effectiveness of the regional policy in Norway.

Thank you for your attention and I wish you good luck with conference and appologise that I have to leave today.