Press

Mainland gross domestic product, which excludes oil, gas and shipping, grew 0.3 percent from the previous quarter, Statistics Norway said. Total gross domestic product jumped 1.1 percent, as petroleum investments rose for the first time in 13 quarters. “It’s too soon to conclude that petroleum investments have turned positive as operators on the continental shelf have signalled they will scale down investments by around 10 percent this year,” Marius Gonsholt Hov, an economist at Handelsbanken in Oslo, said in a note. “Still, this marks a slower contraction compared to 2015 and 2016.” Thanks to massive government spending of its oil wealth, record low interest rates and a weak krone, Norway’s $400 billion economy has avoided an outright recession amid the worst slump for its oil industry in a generation. (Bloomberg)