Reduced growth in mainland Norway’s foreign debt

The twelve-month growth in mainland Norway’s foreign debt was 19.0 percent to end-September, down from 24.0 percent to the previous month. The increase emanates from both short-term and long-term debt.

Mainland Norway accounted for 53 percent of the public gross external loan debt. The foreign debt of mainland Norway amounted to NOK 476 billion at end-September.

Offshore industries accounted for the remainder of the foreign debt. For this part of the foreign debt, the annual growth increased from -12.9 per cent to 3.6 percent in September. The increase emanates from short-term debt, where the major part is corporations’ internal loan debt. As shown in the boxes below, the figures can fluctuate considerably from month to month.

The general public gross foreign debt, which mainly relates to non-financial enterprises, went up from NOK 807 billion to NOK 897 billion in September. The twelve-month growth in public gross external loan debt increased from 6.8 percent to 11.4 percent during September.

Increase in total gross debt growth

The twelve-month growth in total gross debt (C3) was 6.7 per cent to end-September, up from 6.1 per cent to end-August. Total gross debt amounted to NOK 4 284 billion at end-September; an increase from NOK 4 184 billion at end-August. About 87 per cent of the gross debt came from mainland Norway.

Decline in domestic gross debt growth

The credit indicator C2 amounted to NOK 3. 386 billion at end-September. The twelve-month growth was 5.5 percent, down from 5.9 percent in the previous month. The debt growth in non-financial enterprises was 2.4 per cent, while the growth in household debt was 6.4 percent. The C2 statistics show that the annual growth in the general public domestic gross debt continued to fall to 5.1 percent to end-October this year.

Source: Statistics Norway