Stable growth in mainland GDP

Published:

The seasonally adjusted gross domestic product for mainland Norway increased by 0.6 per cent in the 3rd quarter of 2017. The mainland economy continued at the same growth rate as the two previous quarters.

Figure 1. Gross domestic produkt. Seasonally adjusted. Volume indices. 2015=100

Gross domestic product Gross domestic product, Mainland-Norway
Q1-2005 86.77 76.73
Q2-2005 87.22 78.8
Q3-2005 87.94 78.86
Q4-2005 88.14 80.33
Q1-2006 88.71 81.06
Q2-2006 88.82 82.06
Q3-2006 89.73 82.56
Q4-2006 91.38 84.94
Q1-2007 91.44 85.97
Q2-2007 91.44 86.27
Q3-2007 92.61 88.4
Q4-2007 93.62 88.94
Q1-2008 92.48 88.29
Q2-2008 92.53 89.55
Q3-2008 92.36 89.87
Q4-2008 92.65 87.84
Q1-2009 91.9 87.45
Q2-2009 91.09 87.57
Q3-2009 91.15 87.31
Q4-2009 91.2 87.9
Q1-2010 92.99 89.3
Q2-2010 92 89.04
Q3-2010 89.72 89.42
Q4-2010 92.24 89.26
Q1-2011 92.28 90.08
Q2-2011 91.89 90.79
Q3-2011 93.37 91.22
Q4-2011 93.42 91.85
Q1-2012 95.42 93.57
Q2-2012 95.64 93.81
Q3-2012 94.26 94.45
Q4-2012 95.03 95.14
Q1-2013 95.24 95.83
Q2-2013 95.92 95.86
Q3-2013 96.87 96.79
Q4-2013 96.69 97.53
Q1-2014 97.21 97.74
Q2-2014 97.89 98.62
Q3-2014 98.38 98.85
Q4-2014 99.4 99.5
Q1-2015 99.3 99.79
Q2-2015 99.78 100.01
Q3-2015 101.06 100.19
Q4-2015 99.86 100.01
Q1-2016 101.13 100.54
Q2-2016 100.94 100.87
Q3-2016 100.26 100.97
Q4-2016 101.7 101.2
Q1-2017 101.84 101.86
Q2-2017 103.01 102.48
Q3-2017 103.76 103.07

Figure 2. Gross fixed capital formation and consumption. Seasonally adjusted. Volume indices. 2015=100

Gross fixed capital formation, Mainland-Norway Consumption in households
Q1-2005 77.35 73.9
Q2-2005 79.15 74.96
Q3-2005 81.04 76.42
Q4-2005 87.47 75.49
Q1-2006 84.48 77.34
Q2-2006 90.07 78.91
Q3-2006 87.66 79.88
Q4-2006 93.04 80.32
Q1-2007 96.02 82.1
Q2-2007 98.79 83
Q3-2007 101.08 84.17
Q4-2007 109.78 85
Q1-2008 104.51 86.11
Q2-2008 102.21 86.05
Q3-2008 102.37 84.6
Q4-2008 101.33 83.68
Q1-2009 92.53 82.85
Q2-2009 89.61 84.64
Q3-2009 88.04 85.63
Q4-2009 96.4 86.09
Q1-2010 84.11 87.75
Q2-2010 84.81 87.51
Q3-2010 85.7 88.42
Q4-2010 88.56 88.97
Q1-2011 91.54 89.22
Q2-2011 89.25 89.85
Q3-2011 89.56 90.13
Q4-2011 90.88 91.14
Q1-2012 91.88 92.17
Q2-2012 92.52 93.19
Q3-2012 99.58 93.87
Q4-2012 103.58 94.02
Q1-2013 95.45 95.42
Q2-2013 100.48 95.69
Q3-2013 100.23 96.41
Q4-2013 102.35 96.58
Q1-2014 99.19 96.95
Q2-2014 101.13 97.78
Q3-2014 99.97 97.89
Q4-2014 100.53 98.64
Q1-2015 98.96 99.2
Q2-2015 99.69 99.98
Q3-2015 99.81 100.19
Q4-2015 101.54 100.63
Q1-2016 102.29 101.09
Q2-2016 104.6 100.74
Q3-2016 107.85 101.28
Q4-2016 108.71 101.96
Q1-2017 109.99 102.66
Q2-2017 111.15 103.62
Q3-2017 113.12 104.19

The growth in mainland GDP is mainly due to increased service production, for example by various business services, retail trade and tourism. Overall, private service production increased by 0.8 per cent in the 3rd quarter, according to new figures from the National accounts. The construction and aquaculture industry also made a positive contribution to the rise in the mainland economy. Construction activities have also seen strong growth since 2015 and have been an important contributor in many quarters. In the 3rd quarter, government’s contribution to growth in mainland GDP was low and public service production remained at about the same level as the previous quarter.

For manufacturing and mining, the preliminary seasonally adjusted figures show, however, a reduction in the gross product of 0.5 per cent in the 3rd quarter of 2017, after three quarters of growth. The decline is mainly seen in oil-related industries, while increased activity in the food industry, such as processing and preserving of fish, helped to curb the fall.

Gross product in petroleum activities and foreign shipping increased by 1.5 per cent in the 3rd quarter, contributing to a total increase of 0.7 per cent in GDP.

Weaker consumer growth in households

Household consumption increased by 0.6 per cent in the 3rd quarter, having increased by 0.9 per cent the previous quarter. Commodity consumption showed a particularly weak development. Growth in the 3rd quarter was 0.4 per cent and was mainly boosted by increased car purchases. On the other hand, service consumption increased by about the same as the previous two quarters, with a seasonally adjusted growth of 0.8 per cent.

Public consumption increased by 0.5 per cent in the 3rd quarter, compared with 0.8 per cent in the 2nd quarter.

Increase in mainland investment

In total, gross investment increased by 0.3 per cent. Preliminary figures show that the value of petroleum investments fell sharply in the 3rd quarter compared with the previous quarter. At the same time, we see that the prices of investments fell, leading to a more limited decline in volume. However, mainland industry showed a clear growth in investments. Nearly two thirds of this is explained by major expansion projects in the power grid, but investment in manufacturing also increased, along with continued strong growth in housing investment. However, public sector investment was clearly lower in the 3rd quarter than in the previous quarter, but this was due to the fact that the 2nd quarter figures contained deliveries of three new combat aircraft.

Increased exports of traditional goods

Exports of goods and services increased overall by 0.9 per cent in the third quarter of 2017. Exports of traditional goods increased for the third successive quarter. Preliminary figures show continued increase in the export volume of oil and natural gas and services.

A slight decline was observed in imports of traditional goods in the last two quarters, while the preliminary figures show an increase in service imports. In addition, imports of large capital goods, such as ships, aircraft and modules for the oil industry, fell in the 3rd quarter, resulting in a total reduction in imports of 1.8 per cent from the2nd quarter.

Employment growth continues

Preliminary calculations show that employment adjusted for seasonal variations increased by 0.3 per cent, or about 9 200 persons in the 3rd quarter. Compared to the 3rd quarter of 2016, more than 30 000 more people were employed. The largest increases in employment in the third quarter were in construction, business services and accommodation and catering operations. At the same time, the figures indicate that the upswing is more widespread than before.

Revised figures

In connection with the release of figures for the 3rd quarter of 2017, new information has been incorporated into the 1st and 2nd quarter figures for 2017. The seasonally adjusted GDP for mainland Norway has been revised downwards by 0.1 percentage points in the 2nd quarter since the previous publication. For an overview of the revisions in the main aggregates in the last quarters, see table 8.

For an overview of developments in the gross domestic product for some of our trading partners, see OECD’s statistics.

How the figures are calculated

The sum of four quarters in the Quarterly National Accounts (QNA) makes up the preliminary annual figures until the Annual National Accounts (ANA) for year t are published in August in year t+2 and incorporated as a new base year in the QNA. Hence, 2015 is the base year in the QNA when publishing data in August 2017.

In both the ANA and QNA, the figures stripped of movements in prices are referred to as volume changes, or fixed price estimates in the QNA, and this is done to identify the underlying cyclical pattern of the economy.

Note that in the time series in volume, the figures from the base year and onwards are fixed price figures, while data prior to the base year are chained volume figures. This implies that additivity in volume is lost prior to the base year.