Per Kleppe

Per Andreas Hildhe Kleppe (13 April 1923 – 10 March 2021) was a Norwegian economist and politician for the Labour Party. He was the Minister of Trade and Shipping in 1971–1972 during the first cabinet Bratteli, and later the Minister of Finance from 1973 to 1979 during the second cabinet Bratteli and the cabinet Nordli. In 1979 he was replaced by Ulf Sand, but Kleppe returned in 1980 to head the Secretariat for Long-Term Planning (until 1981). He served as General Secretary of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) from 1981 to 1988. Personal life Kleppe was born in Kristiania (now Oslo) in April 1923, a son of lawyer Knut Sigurd Kleppe and Nathalie Mathilde Andersen; the family moved to Bergen when he was six years old. In 1951 he married editor Margaretha Eva Malmros Ström.