Thus, the 12-month growth in prices falls somewhat back from July, when it was 6.8 per cent. The reasons are that the price of petrol and diesel fell from July to August. – The 12-month growth was a whopping 6.5 per cent. It is true that it is a few tenths lower than in July, but it is still very high in a historical perspective, says Geir Axelsen, who is the managing director of Statistics Norway. The most important reasons for the sharp rise in prices are that the prices of food, electricity and fuel were higher in August this year compared to August last year. The so-called core inflation has risen 4.7 per cent in the past year, and is therefore somewhat higher than in July. Last month’s fall in fuel prices is the reason why the twelve-month growth in the CPI decreased from July to August. The development is linked to the fact that oil prices have fallen in the last two months, according to Statistics Norway. Photo: Beate Oma Dahle / NTB Highest inflation since the 80s From January this year, the annual increase in prices has risen continuously until the month of July, and we have to go back some twenty years to see as high a rise in prices as we see now. In 1988, inflation was on the way down, and the year before was 10 per cent. Monetary policy was different from what we have today. The key interest rate was set on the basis that the krone exchange rate was to be kept fixed against the German mark. At the time of writing, with the exception of the month of July, inflation is now higher than ever before under the current monetary policy regime. It was in 2001 that the government introduced new guidelines for monetary policy, where the central bank controls the key interest rate according to a target for price growth. Today, this target is for price growth to be close to 2 per cent over time. SSB’s managing director Geir Axelsen in news Dagsnytt on Friday morning. Photo: Johan B. Sættem Increasing interest rate pressure on Norges Bank In August, Norges Bank raised its key interest rate by 0.5 percentage points, to 1.75 per cent, and announced that interest rates would rise further in September. In the latest monetary policy report from June, the central bank expected a growth in consumer prices of 5.4 per cent in August. At the same time, Norges Bank expected growth in the so-called core inflation (which is the growth in prices if you remove the changes in taxes and the price of electricity and fuel), of 4.2 per cent. Inflation rose less than economists expected Estimates that Infront TDN Direkt obtained in advance from five economists show that overall inflation (CPI) was expected to rise 7.1 per cent on an annual basis in August, up from 6.8 per cent the previous month. At the same time, the economists expected that core inflation would increase to 4.8 per cent on an annual basis in August, up from 4.5 per cent in July.
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Prices have risen 6.5 per cent in the past year – news Norway – Overview of news from various parts of the country
