External trade with commodities 1992-1997

Doubled Import from Developing Countries

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Imports of goods from developing countries went up from NOK 14.3 billion to NOK 29.8 billion during the period 1992-1997. Last year it was possible to apply lower customs duties to NOK 6.2 billion worth of commodities, but the arrangement was not fully exercised. Low duties were applied to only 77 per cent of those commodities.

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In the period 1992 to 1997, China and South Korea were the largest suppliers of "preference-rated commodities" to Norway. The commodities are embraced by the Generalized System Preferences (GSP) agreement, which allows the use of trade-promoting measures such as low or no duty on commodities imported from developing countries.

In 1997 we received NOK 2.1 billion worth of goods from China under the GSP agreement. The right to use lower or no duty on imports was applied to 88 per cent of that amount. Imports from South Korea amounted to NOK 648 million, 82 percent of which were given lower duties.

Tripled import from MUL countries

From the least developed countries (MUL countries) we imported NOK 300 million worth of GSP commodities last year, nearly triple the NOK 110 million in 1992. Among the MUL countries, we imported the most from Bangladesh and Botswana: NOK 143 million and NOK 61 million, respectively. For Botswana, this was an increase from NOK 2 million in 1992.

New Statistics

External trade with commodities 1992-1997
The statistics are published each month in the Weekly Bulletin of Statistics. See also the Official Statistics of Norway (NOS) External trade with commodities 1997. For more information and e-mail, contact: anne.berit.dahle@ssb.no. Phone: +47 22 46 47 10.

Weekly Bulletin issue no. 27, 1998