Norway UPSC NOTE

Why in news

On the role of Norway in the recently signed trade pact between India and the four-nation European Free Trade Association (EFTA) bloc, May-Elin Stener, Ambassador of Norway to India said, “Norwegian businesses are showing a lot of interest in India because India is the fifth-largest and fastest-growing economy in the world. The treaty has immense importance because the Western businesses also feel secure and can now rely on this framework for them to operate within”

European Free Trade Association (EFTA) bloc

The European Free Trade Association (EFTA) is a regional trade organization and free trade area consisting of four European states: Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland.
The organization operates in parallel with the European Union (EU), and all four member states participate in the European Single Market and are part of the Schengen Area.
They are not, however, party to the European Union Customs Union.

EFTA was historically one of the two dominant western European trade blocs, but is now much smaller and closely associated with its historical competitor, the European Union.
It was established on 3 May 1960 (Stockholm Convention) to serve as an alternative trade bloc for those European states that were unable or unwilling to join the then European Economic Community (EEC), the main predecessor of the EU.
The headquarters of the EFTA Secretariat are located in Geneva, with offices in Brussels and Luxembourg

Norway

Norway , is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, situated on the Scandinavian Peninsula.
The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of Norway.
The capital and largest city in Norway is Oslo.
The country shares a long eastern border with Sweden.
It is bordered by Finland and Russia to the northeast and the Skagerrak strait to the south.

The Skagerrak strait running between the Jutland peninsula of Denmark, the east coast of Norway and the west coast of Sweden, connects the North Sea and the Kattegat sea