And that is not just in relation to international trade. Domestic deregulation is increasingly in vogue in many countries; and there is much greater openness around the world to inward investment and foreign ownership. I see the same presumption in favour of competition, for example, in the global trend to privatisation, through which governments have increasingly returned commercial activities, in which they have no necessary comparative advantage, to the market sector. At the same time, against the background of financial globalisation, attention has in the past few years increasingly focused on removing restrictions on the free flow of capital again domestically and internationally - essentially on the grounds that this can further improve the effective allocation of productive resources, increasing the benefits to be derived from competition in markets for goods and services. The IMF is in fact currently working on an amendment to its Articles of Agreement to give it a greater role in promoting the liberalisation of external capital movements. BIS Review 36/1998  -3-  Of course, it remains true that market competition, and the supply capacity of the economy more generally, are inevitably influenced by virtually every other aspect of public policy, and will be affected to varying degrees by the particular social and economic judgements made by national politicians. This is true whether one is talking about direct public sector provision - of education and training, for example, or incentives to saving and investment, or current or prospective welfare provision, or the structure of taxation.

Chart: Relative labour costs Improved cost-competitiveness is an important factor in enabling new exports to emerge as the production of oil and gas dwindles. Tourism in Norway has risen markedly in recent years, and exports of traditional manufactured finished products have shown an appreciable increase. However, the increase is not sufficient to compensate for a decrease in exports from other sectors of the mainland economy. Total mainland exports were lower last year than in 2014. The most important reason for this is the marked decrease in oil service industry exports in the wake of the fall in oil prices. But even excluding this part of the export industry, growth in mainland exports since 2014 has been lower than growth in trading partner imports. Chart: Mainland exports Weak export growth partly reflects supply-side constraints in some sectors. Production stoppages at several large companies led to a decrease in industrial commodity exports last year, while salmon lice infestations contributed to a decline in seafood exports. Other service sector segments in addition to the oil service industry also appear to have been adversely affected by the downturn in the global petroleum industry. A weaker krone is also an advantage for Norwegian firms competing in the domestic market. Competitiveness in the oil service industry has improved considerably, particularly after the substantial cost-cutting measures introduced by companies in this industry in recent years. We have recently seen that a larger share of contracts on the Norwegian continental shelf is being awarded to Norwegian companies.