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Barents Region needs holistic plan for infrastructure

Pia Svensgaard leading meeting in the Barents Regional Council, Murmansk October 2009

The Barents region must focus more on processing and manufacturing to avoid becoming a solely raw material supplier. To achieve this goal the regions needs a well-functioning and well-developed transportation infrastructure, says Troms County Governor Pia Svensgaard.

Location

This week the Ministers for Competiveness from the four Barents countries met in Umeå, Sweden, to discuss how the Barents region can strengthen its competitiveness and contribute to a more eco-efficient economy in a global context.

The Barents region has throughout ages been characterized by commodity-based businesses where the majority of these raw materials have been delivered to markets outside the region.

- Today, large volumes of both raw materials and energy, in the form of petroleum and gas, are exported to markets outside the region where they are processed and often end up back in our region in the form of finished products, said Head of the Tromsø County Council Pia Svensgaard in her speech at the meeting in Umeå.

Pia Svensgaard holds position as Head of the Barents Regional Council.

Transports of large quantities of raw materials versus far less voluminous finished products are significantly less energy efficient and environmentally friendly. Svensgaard underlined that this is a strong incentive to promote increased processing and manufacturing of locally extracted raw materials in the region.

By increasing the focus on development and manufacturing in a larger extent than today, the region can be developed from being a net supplier of raw materials into a region where new industry is emerging and growing.

Railroad and ports
To achieve this goal, the region needs a well-functioning and well-developed transportation infrastructure with sustainable solutions in a holistic perspective and not only as isolated bits and pieces, Svensgaard believes. - The possibilities are many, and it is important to take them all into consideration, she said.

As the maritime traffic in the Baltic region will continue and grow, there will be an ever increasing need for alternate shipping options and both the Russian and Norwegian ports in the north will be good alternatives. It is partly because of this situation that the ideas on building railroad links between Kolari in Finland and Storfjord in Troms, and between Rovaniemi in Finland and Kirkenes in Norway – has gained increased interest.

As BarentsObserver reported, Norwegian and Finnish transport authorities in april started a study of the needs for development of a train connection from Rovaniemi in Finland to Kirkenes or Skibotn in Norway. A study shows that there could be a market for up to 40 daily trains from Finland to the Barents Sea coast.

The Ministers of Transport in the four Barents countries will meet in Haparanda, Sweden, in June to discuss infrastructure needs in the north.