On October 18^th 2016, the Norwegian-Ukrainian Business Forum (NUBF2016) took place at BI Norwegian Business School in Oslo. The Business Forum was organized by the Norwegian-Ukrainian Chamber of Commerce (NUCC) in cooperation with BI Norwegian Business School and the Ukrainian Embassy in Oslo.

---

The conference took place in connection with the Ukrainian President Poroshenko´s official visit to Norway – almost two years after Prime Minister Erna Solberg visited Kyiv.

Both Prime Minister Solberg and President Poroshenko stressed the good opportunities for increased bilateral trade and business cooperation that lie between Norway and Ukraine. Poroshenko listed several reasons underlining his optimism: «The Ukrainian and Norwegian economy are to a very large extent complementary and mutually reinforced».

Further, Prime Minister Solberg underlined the need of real changes in Ukraine and confirmed Norway´s support to Ukraine’s efforts to undertake necessary reforms in the country. According to the Prime Minister, «there is no reason why Ukraine cannot be a major player in Europe in the future. The country clearly has great potential»

NUCC is very happy that both the Prime Minister and the President expressed clear ambitions to realize the potential for increased business cooperation between Norway and Ukraine. Concrete measures on how to enhance the economic cooperation was also discussed during the Norwegian-Ukrainian commission on Trade, Business and Economic Cooperation September 27^th.

If you want to hear more of their message, you can watch Prime Minister Solberg´s speech here and President Poroshenko’s speech here.

The conference was opened by Mr Lars Jacob Hiim, State Secretary of the Norwegian Ministry of Trade, Industry and Fisheries and Ms Yuliia Kovaliv, First Deputy Minister in the Ukrainian Ministry of Economic Development and Trade. You can find videos from the opening here and here.

All videos were produced by BI Norwegian Business School.