Benedicte Fleischer

Benedicte Fleischer has worked most of her career with trade policy issues at the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign. She was posted in 2019 as Minister Counsellor, Deputy Permanent Representative, at the Permanent Mission of Norway to the WTO and EFTA in Geneva. She is Norway’s lead delegate to the OECD Trade Committee and member of its Bureau, and lead negotiator for Norway in the Fisheries Subsidies negotiations.

She has had two previous foreign postings, 1988-1990 as Secretary of Embassy at the Norwegian Mission to the OECD, Paris, and 2003-2006 as Counsellor for Economic Affairs at the Norwegian Embassy in Beijing, as well as being Acting Deputy Head of Mission for a year.

She has held various positions 2006-2019 related to Norway’s trade policy in the MFA section responsible for WTO- and OECD-affairs, as senior adviser, deputy director, acting director and policy director for trade negotiations. She was 2007-2014 lead negotiator for Norway in the WTO negotiations on Trade Facilitation.

She was also in 2011-2015, as well as from 2021 Donor representative and board member of the Enhanced Integrated Framework (EIF) for trade-related assistance for Least Developed Countries, and chaired the EIF Board Working Group on the Extension of the EIF Programme to phase 2.

Early in her career, from 1992-2003, she worked especially on trade in services negotiations in the Uruguay Round, the WTO and EFTA, OECD investment negotiations (MIA), as well as negotiations on Russia’s accession to WTO.

She is married and has two children.