Reversed cross-border shopping
The financial crisis and the weak Norwegian currency has turned cross-border shopping between Norway and neighboring states Sweden and Finland upside down.
Traditionally, Norwegians in the northern part of the country have travelled to Finland to buy petrol, meat, alcoholic beverages and tobacco. Now, when the Norwegian Krone is weak against the Euro, the Finns are coming in great numbers to Northern Norway to buy cheap foodstuffs.
Shopkeepers in the Norwegian town Karasjok noticed an increasing number of Finnish customers from the end of November, the regional newspaper Finnmark Dagblad reports. With the exception of tobacco and alcohol, most commodities are cheaper to buy in Norway than in Finland these days.
In the Finnish town of Karigasinemi, 15 kilometers from Karasjok, shopkeepers are experiencing hard times. Some firms have had a drop in turnover on 20-35 percent.
In the south-eastern parts of Norway, where Sweden is the traditional objective for Norwegian cross-border shoppers, shopkeepers are experiencing that more and more Swedes do their shopping in Norway, NRK reports.
