Norway Dials Up Spending of Oil Wealth as Inflation Eases
- Budget withdrawals from wealth fund to rise more than in 2023
- Security investments to back rebound as credit costs stay high
Norway plans to spend more of its $1.6 trillion sovereign wealth fund than planned earlier, helping the Nordic nation’s economy overcome a soft patch amid an expected delay in interest rate cuts.
Labor Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store’s cabinet is widening its so-called structural non-oil fiscal deficit for 2024 to 419 billion kroner ($39 billion), compared with 410 billion kroner seen in October, according to revised budget figures published on Tuesday. The budget withdrawals, as a share of mainland trend gross domestic product, will increase by 0.7 percentage point from last year, slightly more than the 0.6 percentage-point gain projected by the central bank in March and also higher than last year’s increase of 0.5 percentage point.