Slow growth in Norwegian industry after oil crisis: report

A recent economic report from the Federation of Norwegian Industries showed great uncertainty in Norway's industry activities after the oil crisis, online newspaper E24 reported Tuesday.

Higher investments in processing industry contribute to higher employment, but this is still overshadowed by the continuing downturn in the oil industry, the report said.

Turnover in the Norwegian industrial and mining enterprises fell by nearly 7 percent to 775 billion kroner (93.78 billion U.S. dollars) last year, with a decline in both export and domestic market.

The reasons for this are, according to the report, lower energy prices and lower demand for equipment for ships and drilling rigs, as well as weak development of the world economy.

The federation underlines that the forecasts in the report is more uncertain than usual due to uncertainty and reluctancy of the federation's large members to give their own forecasts.

Turnover of companies supplying machinery and production equipment went down by 46 percent on the local market, while the shipyards' turnover fell by 23 percent.

"Number of drilling rigs and drillships on the global market is currently far above the need, so that building process has completely stopped," the federation said. Endit