Norwegians spent NOK 583 million more shopping in Sweden during the first half of this year than they did last year. That’s up nearly 13 percent from cross-border spending during the same first-half period last year, as Norwegians seek relief from prices that are higher than ever at home.
Norway’s state statistics bureau SSB (Statistics Norway) has reported that Norwegians spent NOK 5.1 billion from January through June at Swedish shopping centers, many of them strategically placed close to border crossings. SSB calculated that Norway’s 5.5 million residents had collectively made around 2.7 million day trips over the border to Sweden, just during the first six months of the year.
Since summer is high season for border crossings, the figures are even higher now. SSB reported that Norwegians spent around NOK 600 million at the popular Nordby Shopping Center in July alone. It’s located just over the border to Sweden at Svinesund.
“Border trade (called grensehandel in Norwegian) usually picks up around holidays and the summer vacation period, when people have more time to take a day trip over the border,” Guro Henriksen of SSB told state broadcaster NRK. She thinks rainy weather at the beginning of the summer, especially in June, could also have contributed to the Swedish shopping sprees.
Rising prices at grocery stores in Norway have also motivated the trips over the border, despite Norway’s unusually weak krone. Prices in Sweden are still lower on a wide range of everyday items, and especially on alcoholic beverages and tobacco. Norwegians also flock to Swedish pharmacies, along with clothing-, shoe- and sporting goods stores.
“It’s cheaper here, and it’s also nice to just get away,” one shopper, Malin Grimnes, told NRK. Like many other Norwegians shopping in Sweden, she and her friend Amalie Kristiansen said they stock up while there. “The last time I was here, I spent NOK 6,000,” said Kristiansen, while SSB’s statistics show that Norwegian shoppers spent NOK 1,921 on average during the first six months of the year. That’s slightly less than the NOK 1,968 spent during the first half of 2023.
Fully 42 percent of the Norwegian kroner flowing into Swedish cash registers was spent on food and other grocery-store items, while 14 percent was spent on alcoholic beverages and 11 percent on tobacco products. Taxes in Sweden remain lower than in Norway, while many Norwegians are also attracted by a wider selection at the large Swedish grocery stores. Lower food prices remain the biggest draw, when the same loaf of bread that costs NOK 49 in Oslo cost SEK 25 at Nordby, or when a wide range of fruit and vegetables in Sweden cost half of what they’re sold for at Norway’s allegedly low-price chains like KIWI and REMA.
Tax and farm policy remains a topic of political debate in Norway, with many suppliers (especially beverage makers hit by high sugar tax) claiming that they’re losing business to the Swedish shopping center. It’s startling when the price of a locally grown cucumber in Norway is NOK 24 but just SEK 14 for a Swedish-grown cucumber at the Eurocash store just over the fjord from Halden. The large volume of sales at Swedish border stores like Eurocash and Maximat, especially for soft drinks, however, can bring prices even below what they are elsewhere in Sweden. Prices in Stockholm, for example, can be higher than those in Strömstad.
“The government has raised fees and taxes, and that’s contributed to how Norway has had much higher price hikes on food than our neighbouring country,” complains Hans Andreas Limi, a long-time Member of Parliament and deputy leader of the conservative Progress Party. “Sweden has also lowered the price of fuel. That’s why border trade rises.”
Government officials in the finance ministry, however, claimed it was “too early” to claim strong growth in border trade. They tied the increase in money spent in Sweden on higher prices in Sweden, too, and defended high Norwegian taxes on alcohol, tobacco and sugar that are aimed at improving public health. Lowering such taxes in Norway, they claim, could lead to higher health care costs.
NewsinEnglish.no/Nina Berglund
