Norway opens borders for Russian workers
The Norwegian government now opens up for the influx of Russian workers to the three northernmost Norwegian counties. –This will strengthen cooperation across the Norwegian-Russian border, Minister of Labour Dag Terje Andersen says.
The new cross-border labour regime will come into force on 1 December, the Ministry of Labour and Social Inclusion confirms in a press release.
The new arrangement can be seen as a major breakthrough in labour mobility between Norway and Russia. It is also an unprecedented move for the strengthening of Norwegian-Russian regional cooperation.
The new system includes only the Norwegian and Russian regions, which are part of the Barents Euro-Arctic Region. That is Nordland, Troms and Finnmark from the Norwegian side and Murmansk Oblast, Republic of Karelia, Arkhangelsk Oblast, Nenets Autonomous Okrug and the Komi Republic from the Russian side.
More than 3,5 million people live in the Russian regions included by the Norwegian labour regulation. They can now be invited to work for northern Norwegian companies. The new system also includes unskilled labour.
It was former Labour Minister Bjarne Håkon Hansen which initiated the process of facilitating Russian work immigration to Norway. In April this year he presented he presented a white paper on the issue in Kirkenes. The paper opens up for the influx of both skilled and unskilled Russian labour to northern Norway.
A new service centre on work immigration issues will be established in the Norwegian border town of Kirkenes to help facilitate contacts between Norwegian companies and Russian workers.
As BarentsObserver recently reported, trade between Norway and Russia is on the increase. Trade turnover between the two countries in the first nine months of the year increased with 76 percent. The trade had a value of 1.28 billion USD, up from 731 million USD in the same period in 2007.
