CEO Stein Lier-Hansen of Norwegian Industries evaluated the new budget proposal of the government for norwegian export companies.
There are significant amounts of rhetorical sympathy to register from the government, but the action of the government may make the export companies’ situation worse, wrote Norwegian Industries webpage. The proposal to reverse the temporary increase in depreciation rate for machinery (from 30% to 20%), will mean that the industry in 2011 must pay 2.5 billion more in taxes, “said Stein Lier-Hansen.
Hansen continued his criticism with the depreciation rate. He demanded that it should have been as low as 15% for further development in Norway. “-Not least because all of the countries that Norwegian industry is competing with, operates with tariffs of 25% -30%. Both in relation to the export companies’ future competitiveness and increased investment in future-oriented environmental technology, the Government should realize that we must have the same rates of depreciation as other modern industrialized countries.” Said he.