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The Norwegian government is thinking of more than doubling the withdrawal of the Petroleum Fund this year to cope with the impact of the crown crisis on the economy.
New figures also show that GDP already fell sharply in the first quarter.
The Norwegian government under Prime Minister Erna Solberg will present its traditional supplementary budget at 10:45 am, which this year has been assigned the role of crisis budget.
Already in the morning the message came that the government plans to lose the Norwegian Petroleum Fund of SEK 419.6 billion, corresponding to SEK 402 billion.
It’s more than that it doubled over last year and corresponds to 4.2 percent of the fund’s assets, according to Norwegian financial newspaper Dagens Næringsliv.
Kjersti Haugland, chief economist at DNB Markets, tells the newspaper that already this fall, the state began increasing withdrawals from the oil fund.
“They will also increase further in the future. Not everything is presented today. However, it is limited to how fast the money can be spent. “
The rules allow That 3 percent of the oil fund can be used each year, but it is opened for the government to exceed in times of crisis.
“It is understandable that the use of oil money is increasing. It is not something to be concerned about. It is a flexible rule. The idea is precisely to provide gas in the opposite direction, which is definitely the Norwegian economy. ”
Kjersti Haugland expects the withdrawal of the oil fund to remain above the 3 percent limit next year.
The Ministry of Finance believes Norway’s economy will shrink by 4.0 percent this year, while unemployment will rise to 5.9 percent. Both figures would be the worst since World War II.
Other judges are even more pessimistic. The central bank Norges Bank expects a GDP drop of 5.2 percent, Statistics Sweden believes 5.5 percent and DNB Markets 6 percent.
On Tuesday, the Norwegian Statistics Authority also released GDP figures for the first quarter. Continental GDP fell 2.1 percent compared to the fourth quarter of last year, while total GDP fell 1.5 percent.
The case of the continental economy it was higher than expected, while the economy with the oil and gas industry was exactly as bad as expected. This shows the consensus forecast for Trading Economics according to the Direkt news agency.
Norwegian households reduced consumption by 3.6 percent. As a result, imports fell as much as 4.9 percent, while exports fell 2.4 percent compared to the fourth quarter last year.
