Norway's Labour-led coalition government met on Sunday to begin its final talks on the 2007 budget, which it said would raise taxes and implement spending plans outlined in a 2005 policy platform.
"We're here to distribute large sums. We will spend large sums on the big causes," Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said at the start of the three-party government's budget talks.
He promised a "clear political profile" that would distinguish his government from the centre-right coalition that held power in 2001-2005. Transportation and kindergartens are among the top priorities for the oil-rich nation.
The government has pledged to fund welfare spending by raising taxes back to the level that prevailed in 2004 before the previous centre-right government cut taxes.
"We're putting in place the conditions for raising taxes to the level they were at in 2004," Centre Party leader Aaslaug Haga told reporters at a briefing with the leaders of the Labour and Socialist Left parties.
For 2006, the government set in May a revised budget with a surplus swelling to 327 billion crowns ($51.76 billion) due to huge oil revenues, but with an underlying deficit of 65.9 billion crowns before the gap is plugged with oil money.
Finance Minister Kristin Halvorsen of the Socialists declined to comment on how the budget would measure up to the country's fiscal spending rule, a framework in place since 2001 to prevent governments from spending too much oil money.
"You'll have to wait until October 6," she said, referring to the date when the budget will be presented.
Norway is the world's third-biggest oil exporter and Western Europe's biggest gas exporter.
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