Ladies and gentlemen!

First of all, I would like to thank you for inviting me to this important conference. The Norwegian Government attaches great importance to the issues which will be discussed here today, and I am impressed by the list of speakers as well as the promising agenda for this conference.

Norway has for a number of years been among the leading countries in the world when it comes to promoting equality among men and women. The news went all over the world when former Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland appointed 40 % female Ministers to her second government in 1986. Norway is still among the top countries in the world when it comes to appointing women to higher political positions. However, women still have a far too modest role in the economic life, and this is

an issue that this Government is taking seriously and will continue to address.

We all know that equality among genders and the need for diversity is more than just womens’ liberation. Women represent a resource that has an important role to play in the economic life. Women entrepreneurs make new contributions to business, create jobs and provide for both new ideas and innovative ways of putting them into practice. Helping women realise their potential will

provide a vital stimulus to the economy. Business will make the most of globalisation and the new technologies only if the obstacles preventing women from fully participating in the economic life can be overcome.

The Norwegian government considers it important to approach these issues also from a global perspective. We are therefore participating actively in the ongoing work in the UN, OECD and other international organisations in attempting to mainstream operational guidelines and policies promoting equality among genders.

Domestically, a number of initiatives have been launched to assist women in taking up the challenge of creating and managing their own business, as well as job-advancement in private sector companies. The Ministry of Trade and Industry has for the past two years allocated approximately 20 million Norwegian kroner to The Norwegian Industrial and Regional Development Fund,

SND, for this purpose, into a programme that focuses on advancement of women in private sector positions. This programme has two main objectives: The first objective is to increase the number of women in top positions in the private sector, and the other is to encourage female entrepreneurship. Some very interesting initiatives have been taken under this programme, for instance a project which aims at developing and upgrading necessary skills needed in order to qualify for board positions.

Several of the women that have participated in this project have now been offered board positions in various companies. The person in charge of this work at SND, Mrs. Aud Rolseth Sanner, will be hosting one of the round-table discussions during lunch, where the subject to be discussed is female ownership and management diversity.

The Ministry is also in charge of a number of state-owned companies, and measures are being taken in order to increase the proportion of women in important positions

within these companies. This is another subject which will be discussed during lunch, and one of my colleagues from the Ministry will also be participating in the discussion taking place at table 6 on state ownership and gender diversity.

Another issue that we are addressing in the Ministry is the fact that women seem to be less interested than men in information technology and what is often referred to as the new economy. Measures must be taken to ensure that

women participate more actively in developing this new society.

In order to attract more women to their technical faculty, The University of Trondheim launched a project called Girls and IT a couple of years ago. Measures were taken in order to make the traditional technical courses more attractive to women, and the experiences so far have been very good. The Ministry of Trade and Industry would like to see more initiatives like this, in order to prevent

that the information highways becomes a playground for men only.

Let me conclude my opening speech by wishing you all success in your continued efforts to promote diversity and equality in management. I am certain that you have an interesting conference ahead of you.

Thank you!