Norway's minority government wants to cut taxes for its shipowners and back up Norwegian shipyards with NOK 2.5bn ($370m) worth of building guarantees.
The centre-right coalition is proposing to cut the country's tonnage tax for 2005 to a level corresponding to those assessed in Denmark, the Netherlands and the UK. The shipping proposals come as part of Norway's overall annual budget and were not included in a government "White Paper" earlier in the year.
