Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide.
| Photo Credit: Reuters
India and Norway must engage more to ensure they aren’t “overdependent” on any one global power, said Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide, pitching for more trade, technology and cooperation on renewable energy, which now powers all of Norway’s electricity grid. Speaking to The Hindu after the bilateral meeting this week between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store in Oslo, Mr. Eide said Norway would prefer that India reduces its intake of Russian oil, but understands its concerns on energy security.
Prime Minister Modi spoke of a golden era for ties, but Norway-India bilateral trade in goods and services is still just about $2 billion. Did your discussions focus on how to take this forward, now that the India-EFTA [European Free Trade Association] pact is in place?
India is a fast-growing economy, it has the largest population in the world, and it’s becoming really a centre of many technologies and many industries and important for us. I would also say India should be aware of the difference between interdependence, which is good, and overdependence, which is not so good. We cannot be dependent on a single source of resource or technology, and other countries then need to strengthen their bonds, and this is what we’re doing together.
