At a meeting with Finnmark regional branch of the Confederation of Norwegian Enterprise (NHO) on Wednesday Mr. Gahr Støre said that there is hope that an agreement with Russia could be in place within this year, newspaper Finnmarken reports. He would not say any concrete date when such an agreement would be ready.
An agreement on visa-free travel for the two countries’ border zone inhabitants is high on Finnmark companies’ wish-list says Chairman of the Board in the Finnmark NHO Per Ivar Harila:
- The lack of labour in certain sectors of the economy in Finnmark is serious, and we believe it will be difficult to fill these gaps without this agreement. There is a large potential for recruiting labour from Russia.
During Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg’s visit to Moscow in May 2009, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin told the press that he had noted the positive progress in cross-border cooperation between Norway and Russia and that the two countries’ governments were preparing an agreement that would enhance this progress even more by making traveling across the border easier.
An agreement on visa-free border-crossing will affect people living within a 30 km range from both sides of the border. On the Russian side of the border this concerns around 55 000 people, and on the Norwegian side around 9000.
