Together with local police and customs officials the Norwegian government has highlighted an upgrade of the Storskog border station as a priority. So far, the reconstruction has been limited to the passport control desks inside the building. Other plans have been put on hold waiting governmental funding.
Yesterday the reconstruction of Storskog border station was written into the list of measures to get extra funding from the government’s financial crises package. 800.000 Norwegian kroner (Euro 90.000) are allocated for the purpose this year. The reconstruction will continue also in 2010.
The reconstruction plans includes a new road lane for outbound traffic to Russia, a weather protecting roof over the control area for traffic entering Norway and other measures to make the border crossing traffic more efficient.
The Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre and his Russian college Sergey Lavrov visited the border stations on both sides of the border last spring and discussed how to make cross-border traffic easier between the two countries.
The Russian border station at Boris Gleb was built with Norwegian funding and opened in January 2003. Last year, 104.584 people crossed the border at Storskog.
