What Sino-Norwegian ties tell about future of business

With almost 90 percent of global trade volume transported by ships, maritime transportation is as vital to world trade as arteries are to the human body.

China stands at the forefront of shipping, boasting the world's largest and most valuable shipping fleet and maintaining its position as the largest shipbuilding nation. When you see a container ship, an offshore service vessel or a car carrier, it is quite likely that it was built in China. But if you look closer at the systems that steer these vessels, hold them steady in storms, pump their cargo and keep their crew comfortable, you will often find they have Norwegian origins.

Roughly one in every three vessels in the world is equipped with advanced systems manufactured by a Norwegian company, Kongsberg Maritime. Other Norwegian companies, such as Brunvoll, Framo and Jets, supply the thrusters, the cargo pumps and the onboard systems that turn a bare hull into an operational ship. These companies don't just deliver integrated systems: they also install, connect and remotely monitor them for the next 20 years, ensuring consistent performance.

This shift from selling products to delivering solutions is what matters most in trade today, and the China-Norway relationship illustrates it with unusual clarity. For most of the modern era, trade statistics focused on physical goods. When a pump crossed a border, the value got recorded. However, what a shipowner in Shanghai or Singapore actually buys from a Norwegian supplier is not a pump, but an outcome — a propulsion system connected to the ship's "brain" to ensure efficient and safe cargo movement with minimal downtime. The hardware is only the entry point; the real value lies in the engineering, software, data and decades of service that come with it. Increasingly, suppliers are selling long-term relationships with customers.

Now watch the same story run in the opposite direction. Norway is the world's most electrified car market. In 2025, almost 96 percent of all new cars sold in the country were electric. A large and growing number of those cars — not just Chinese brands such as BYD, but also many Teslas, Volvos and Polestars — were built in China. Yet China exports more than just vehicles. It provides a comprehensive mobility solution — cars equipped with advanced battery chemistry, self-updating software and cost-effective manufacturing scale. China, like Norway, is climbing up the same value chain from components, to finished products, to integrated, software-defined systems.

So, what does it take to move from selling products to delivering solutions? The experiences of China and Norway point to some key conditions. First, domain knowledge is crucial. Norway's demanding maritime environment, characterized by harsh weather and limited daylight during winters, serves as a rigorous testing ground for its offshore and maritime industries. Equipment that thrives here can perform anywhere. Similarly, China's car manufacturers, forged in the largest and most competitive EV market in the world, bring the same fluency to electric mobility.

Second, integration is vital. A solution encompasses hardware, software, service and data, seamlessly bundled together and guaranteed as a whole.
This integration is far harder to copy than individual components, which is why customers are willing to pay more and also stay with the supplier.

Third, long-term trust is essential. A 20-year service contract, performance guarantees and software updates delivered years after the sale — each of these is a promise about the future. These promises depend on stable, long-term relationships across borders, and they turn fragile when trade barriers go up.

For policymakers, this carries a notable implication: current trade statistics may be measuring the wrong metrics.

In 2025, bilateral trade between China and Norway exceeded $11.4 billion. While the ledger dutifully recorded hulls, electronics, seafood and machinery, it did not capture the Norwegian systems riding inside Chinese vessels, or the global software riding inside Chinese cars. The distinction between goods and services is blurring. What is actually traded is the capability to deliver a result, and that doesn't fit into either column.

The future of international trade will favor those who work together rather than those who get behind walls. Combining scale and manufacturing expertise with specialization and systems knowledge will be the key to success. In a rapidly growing market, a Chinese shipyard and a Norwegian systems house, or a Chinese battery maker and a Norwegian charging market, are as much partners as they are competitors.

The deeper lesson from these two very different trading partners at opposite ends of Eurasia is a simple one. Only countries and companies that solve the most problems for their citizens and customers will thrive in the future. And very few of them will manage that alone.

Erik Jakobsen is a partner and chairman of the consultancy firm Menon Economics and is formerly a professor in strategic management at BI Norwegian Business School; and Jonas Erraia is a lecturer at the Copenhagen Business School and the University of Oslo and a partner in Menon Economics.

The views don't necessarily reflect those of China Daily.

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