more than this. LKAB rejected the proposal, and stated that NSB had shown their ability of restructuring too late. By August, SJ and NSB had offered to reduce the price from SEK 650 million to 450 million, but LKAB stated that they believed it was possible to reduce the costs further. In September, Norwegian Minister of Transport and Communications Kjell Opseth from the Labour Party, stated that it would be "unfortunate" if LKAB should take over the operations. On 18 September, 3,000 people in Narvik held a general strike against LKAB's plans. At the time it was not possible for NSB to fire redundant employees, at that the state agency would have to continue to pay their Narvik employees who would not be hired by LKAB, should the latter take over operations. In October the Swedish Ministry of Communications gave the final permission for LKAB to take over operations in their own right. On 26 October, SJ and NSB signed a new five-year contract with LKAB where the latter would purchase transport services from the two state railway. The annual price had then been reduced from SEK 650 to 400 million. The price reduction would mean that both NSB and SJ would have to lay off employees. In 1993, SJ and NSB started operating the Arctic Rail Express (ARE) from Oslo to Narvik via Sweden and the Ofoten Line. Originally the service had two weekly services. The main products were fruits and vegetables northbound and fish southbound. The service moved the northernmost container train service in Norway north, from Fauske on the Nordland Line. ARE met protests from politicians in Salten, who feared less transport on the Nordland Line. In 1993, the state railways were losing money on the ore trains. In January 1994, SJ and NSB stated that they were going to merge the operations of the Ore Line and the Ofoten Line. In May 1994, LKAB applied for traffic rights on the Ofoten Line. This was rejected in December by the Norwegian Ministry of Transport and Communications, who stated that the company did not meet the criteria in the law, including that the applicant had to have rail transport as their main activity. In January 1995, it was proposed that a joint venture would be created between LKAB, SJ and NSB. The Norwegian Union of Railway Workers protested the proposal, and the Norwegian Centre Party stated that their