International Trade committee  Thank you. On the first question, I'll make it very short and say it's two things: one, fair distribution; two, a strong public sector. To the second question, about agriculture, I will say there are two things we do in Norway. We have very high customs rates for imports; we try to have very few imports.

International Trade committee  Thank you. I shall make it short. I think it's one word: education. When people lose their jobs, we try to train them so they can fill other jobs. But of course, in this process, over the years, too many people have been shut out of the workforce also. But we try to train them for the new jobs that develop.

International Trade committee  Yes.

International Trade committee  Yes. I have a couple of comments, if I may. The Norwegian economy also has changed over the last twenty or thirty years. The textile industry is gone, the shoe industry is gone, and so on, and we import more and more of those things that we need in our daily life. We're changing into high-tech; we're changing into service industries, and so on.

International Trade committee  I'll take that first. We in the high north of Norway, together with Iceland and Russia, have succeeded in taking care of the fish stocks very well. All that part of Europe has done so. The Norwegian fishermen were afraid that the EU policy in that area would destroy the fish stocks, to put it simply.

International Trade committee  I'm not familiar with the details in the negotiations between EFTA and Canada, but as far as I know, the fisheries and agriculture present no problems. But others here may know more about that than I do.

International Trade committee  I would like to say it is the same in Norway when it comes to negotiations like the EFTA's with Canada or other countries. It's the EFTA secretariat and the government's cup of tea, so to say. When you talk about the Doha Round WTO negotiations, for example, then the foreign minister and the minister of agriculture were in the Parliament and gave a statement, and it was of some discussion.

International Trade committee  I'll just add a couple of things. I agree with my colleague about the small countries. We have a lot of oil and gas, and fish also, that we have to sell to others. If you think of it, China some years ago decided they also had to enter into world trade to develop further. It's difficult for any nation to think they could behave on their own.

International Trade committee  [Inaudible--Editor]...internal market, except for two areas: fishery policies, fisheries, and agriculture. In all other things we're part of the internal market, as we have been a member. We're playing by the same rules. So for our industry we are a member, so to say, and we also participate in a lot of other programs in the union.

International Trade committee  I just want to say, as my colleague here said, that I have very little or no knowledge of the shipbuilding industry in Canada, so what it takes to do this in Canada I can't say, and I know nothing about this deal in Quebec either. In the United States, I understand we have one successful takeover, if you can call it that, from a Norwegian company.

International Trade committee  Thank you, Chairman. In Norway, we have faced big changes in the shipbuilding industry over the last 20 years. In my home town of Fredrikstad, two big shipbuilding companies have closed down. I think we have succeeded in specializing some of our shipbuilding industry, which is now doing very well, but there are no subsidies in the shipbuilding industry from the Norwegian state.

International Trade committee  No intervention. No.