Norway's Economic Growth Accelerates In Q3

Sponsored Links

Norway's economic growth accelerated in the third quarter, led by a recovery in exports, official data showed Tuesday.

Mainland gross domestic product, which excludes oil, gas and shipping, rose 0.5% sequentially in the third quarter after growing 0.3% in the second quarter, the Statistics Norway said. Economists had forecast 0.8% growth.

Total GDP rose 0.9% sequentially in the third quarter following a 0.9% decline in the previous quarter.

In a report released on Tuesday, the SEB bank said growth in mainland GDP, is likely to be somewhat above trend in 2010 and 2011. "Concerning overall GDP, however, investment in the oil sector is a key downside risk despite the strong rebound in oil prices." The Norges Bank is likely to raise interest rates somewhat more than it has stated, the SEB said.

Detailed data showed that petroleum activities and ocean transport rebounded by 2% and households final consumption growth steadied at 1.1%. government spending grew 1.2%, while gross fixed capital formation slipped 4.8%. Exports recovered strongly by growing 4.6%, while imports fell 0.8%.

"We do not believe these figures will make any difference to Norges Bank, despite the fact that global growth now gives substantial support to mainland growth," Danske Bank chief economist Frank Jullum said. "We continue to look for the next hike in interest rates to take place in February 2010."

In October, Norway's central bank became the first central bank in Europe to hike key policy rate since the financial crisis. It made a quarter point hike in key policy rate to 1.50%. The central bank had slashed interest rates by 4.5 percentage points between October 2008 and June this year.

Norway's economic growth accelerated in the third quarter, led by a recovery in exports, official data showed Tuesday. (Market News Provided by RTTNews)