The Norwegian government presented its budget for next year. One of the measures would be to reduce taxes on the lowest income earners. That is, the person earning less than 72,150 Euros per year at the current exchange rate. A family with a total income of €106,000 will pay €750 less in tax in 2023. this OECD He estimated the tax burden in Norway in 2020 at 38.8%. This rate is 36.6% in Spain and 45.4% in France, for example. The Norwegian government also expects to keep the unemployment rate at 1.7% and inflation at 4.8% next year.
this Prime Minister of Scandinavian country Labor Jonas Gahr Store. He leads a coalition with the Agrarian Center party. official Prime Minister Jens Stoltenbergalso Laborthe Norwegian with the most international influence as NATO Secretary General today.
According to most parameters used, Harald VWith a population of 5.4 million, it is the richest on the planet and the leader in the Human Development ranking. Likewise, sovereign mutual fund (Norges Bank Investment Management) is the largest in the world over Arabs and Asians. The fund’s website constantly updates the market value of investments moving around 1.2 billion euros. The government will finance its expenses in the 2023 budgets using 2.5% of the market value of this fund.
Nothing has been the same in Norway since December 23, 1969, when one of the main oil reserves on the planet was discovered in the North Sea, to which the gas discovery was later added. Today, Norway is the world’s eleventh oil producer and ninth gas producer. The effects of the Ukraine war on the energy market quadrupled the trade surplus in one year. After Norway, Qatar was the country that benefited the most from the energy crisis – unintentionally.
Overseen by the Ministry of Economy, the fund was created to accumulate and invest abroad the income from oil and gas. It has some of the most influential (and prudent) managers in the world. Just now, CEO, Nicholas Tangenbegan to appear in public through interviews with CEOs of large multinational companies. The buying or selling action of the Norwegian fund moves the markets. Also in Spain. Norway has invested the savings of its citizens in the shares of 9,338 companies from 70 countries, government and corporate fixed income, as well as real estate. Apple, which it controls 0.84% of, made its first investment and then microsoft, Alphabet/Google, Amazon Y Nestle. In its first quarter report, the fund admits it lost 14% of its value due to the decline in stock markets and bond prices.
By the end of 2021, Norway It invested 17,000 million euros in Spain, of which 10,252 million were distributed to 74 companies and 6,400 million were fixed income.. In addition to government bonds, he holds bonds from the autonomous regions of Madrid, Andalusia and the Basque Country. Catalonia, which became the community with the most weight, disappeared from its portfolio. In real estate, Norway concentrates most of its industrial investments in the municipalities of Sant Boi, Coslada, Alcalá de Henares and Subirats.
Norway’s record investment in Spain was 18.2 billion in 2019. The record for fixed income came in 2008, double what it was in 2021. Ten years ago, the five companies with the largest Scandinavian share were: Telephone, Santander, BBVA, repsol and Inditex. Today, the ranking of Norwegian bets in Spain is led by the Iberdrola group and the telecommunications tower company, of which it controls 3.22%. CellnexWhere he participated with 3.63%. However, the company with the highest weight among listed companies is Iberpapel.
How does Norges Bank affect its investments? It has no directors, but has to hold private meetings with a wide variety of invested companies (about 2,000), in addition to being required to vote on all Board decisions. An ethics committee formed in 2004 can ask all necessary questions and influence investments. The Fund reserves the opportunity to leave companies for business or ethical reasons. Among those they deliberately mention: palm oil producers. Last year, it presented an investment action plan to tackle climate change, which will mandate its investments to have zero CO2 emissions by 2050. It has been added to the anti-corruption and children’s rights advocacy plan.
The question is how the country itself, Norway, will apply all these demands to itself. Its strategy for the extraction and sale of oil and gas will continue to be more than audited.