KEY POINTS: Three things you need to know about Norway's revised 2025 budget
Finance Minister Jens Stoltenberg unveiled the Norwegian revised budget on Thursday.
Among the key figures was the government's plan to spend 542 billion kroner from the country's 'oil fund'. The government can use revenues from the Government Pension Fund Global, where the country invests its oil and gas revenues, for public spending.
The revised figure for 2025 was around 50 billion kroner more than the initial spending figure given by the government for the initial budget for 2025
But what does the budget mean for you, and what have the experts said?
More details on the fixed-energy price scheme
The government plans to introduce a scheme, dubbed 'Norgespris', that would offer households a fixed energy price throughout the year, offering an alternative to the current subsidy scheme.
'The Norwegian Price is an important measure to enable people in the country to choose to have more predictable electricity costs in a time of fluctuating and sometimes very high electricity prices,' Minister of Energy Terje Aasland said in a statement.
Under the scheme, households that sign up will pay a fixed price of 0.40 øre per kilowatt-hour before network rental and fees. There would also be a consumption limit of 4,000 kilowatt hours per month.
The government expects 70 percent of homes in southern Norway to sign up to the scheme
, and has
estimated that the average home in the Southwest Norway (NO2) energy region will receive government support equivalent to 5,200 kroner in 2026.
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Inflation lower than expected
Annual inflation for 2025
is expected
to be 2.8 percent, down from the original 3 percent estimate.
'Inflation has come down
, and in
April, consumer price inflation was 2.5 percent.
Together with
good wage growth, this is improving households' purchasing power,' the government wrote in its report on the key budget figures.
There was also good news
in regard to
unemployment, as the government expects it to remain low moving forward.
What have the experts said?
In the lead-up to the budget's release,
Stoltenberg said the government would adopt a restrained policy.
While that certainly applies to the policies unveiled in the budget, economists were less sure about how restrained the proposals were fiscally.
'It is not a disaster budget, considering that
a lot
of the increased spending is due to support for Ukraine.
But
in my opinion,
it is going a bit in the wrong direction,' economics professor Ola Honningdal Grytten told public broadcaster
NRK
.
While chief economist at Sparebank 1 SR bank, Kyrre Knudsen, also commented on the use of oil money by the government, he also said there was some potential good news for those hoping for lower interest rates.
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'This is good news. The government is assuming slightly lower inflation than [the central bank] Norges Bank's projections. In general, this means faster interest rate cuts,' he told NRK.
Frank Jullum at Danske Bank told business and financial site
E24
that the budget should be considered 'neutral' for the economy, as the increased oil spending will mostly be money sent to Ukraine.
'This should not
have any effects on
monetary policy,' he said.
'There is more spending, but
much should not be spent
in Norway. The Storting [Norway's parliament] agrees with this, and we economists can agree that money
that is
not spent in Norway will not stimulate the Norwegian economy,' he added.
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