Norway - background market data

Currency (Approx) — Norwegian Krone (NKr): Euro 1=NKr8.123, US$1=NKr6.470, £1=NKr11.820. Stable, although of course it has registered the major shifts in the euro and US dollar in recent years.

Boating Geography — Marine leisure activity is as much a part of life for many Norwegians as the car, motorbike and bicycle are for other nationalities. Hence per capita boat-ownership is high, with roughly one in seven owning some sort of watercraft.

Geographically, sprawling across 390,000km2 and 19 ‘fylker’ (counties or administrative regions), it is a country like no other, glacially eroded into a confusion of lakes, fjords and islands from top to bottom. The total length of coastline — including mainland fjords lakes and islands — is around 21,925km.

With 500,000 people or so in the Greater Oslo area, and their disproportionate wealth compared to other areas, the most popular boating location is the Oslo Fjord to the south, but boating is also big around Stravanger to the southwest and Bergen on the west coast where the big earners in the Norwegian offshore industry are based.

A big problem for the country, however, is the woefully short boating season, usually just from May to September. Much of the country’s waterways are frozen during the winter months.

Boat Park — Estimated at around 700,000, roughly split between 330,000 motorboats, 45,000 sailboats and 245,000 ‘others’, a category that includes small dinghies, canoes and windsurfers. A free boat registration scheme has been in place since 1998, but so far only around 40 per cent have registered. Most boat usage is for leisure purposes.

Restrictions — High VAT rate of 25 per cent, which, like Sweden’s, is the highest in Europe. Because Norway is outside the EU, any used boats bought into the country from elsewhere in the EU become liable to Norwegian VAT, regardless of whether any VAT has been paid in the EU country of first purchase. This means that such brokerage boats effectively have to absorb twofold VAT.

Other inhibitors include a shortage of launching and mooring facilities and a pre-VAT tax on marine engines above 8hp — now around NKr135 per hp, excluding VAT.

Industry Body — Norboat (Norwegian Marine Federation), Drammensveien 126 A, N-0277 Oslo, Norway. Tel: +47 23 08 62 80. Email: ep@norwayboat.no. Contact: Erlend Prytz, managing director. www.norboat.no.

Key Boat Shows (2)

• Sjøen for Alle (AKA Norwegian International Boat Show). Held annually in March in Lillestrom, just outside Oslo. Normally attracts 260 exhibitors, 600 boats and 57,000 or so visitors.
• Bater i Sjøen (Norwegian International In-Water Boat Show). Held in September in Sandvika. Normally attracts around 120 exhibitors, 400 boats and 18,000 visitors.

Market Outlook — Norway’s revenues from offshore oil and gas have buoyed its economy considerably. Power and sail sector of the market are both doing well, although things have now perhaps begun to level off. A few of the bigger Norwegian motorboat builders and equipment manufacturers are also doing well in export markets.