OSLO: The Bank of Norway raised its key interest rate on Thursday, bucking a worldwide trend by central banks looking at cutting rates due to a cooling global economy.
Saying that the “upturn in the Norwegian economy appears to be a little stronger” than expected, the bank hiked the rate by 0.25 percentage points to 1.25 per cent.
The biggest oil and gas producer in western Europe, Norway’s third rate hike since last September had been widely expected due to the strength its economy, which has been propelled by a rebound in oil investments and the weakness of the kroner.
The central bank said it expects Norway’s mainland GDP, which excludes the oil and shipping sectors, to grow by 2.6 per cent this year and 1.9 per cent in 2020. It also indicated another cut could soon follow.
“Our current assessment of the outlook and balance of risks suggests that the policy rate will most likely be increased further in the course of 2019,” the bank’s governor Oystein Olsen said. — Reuters
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