Slightly lower investments next year

The first estimates of investments in manufacturing, mining and quarrying and electricity supply for the year 2000 are three per cent lower than the corresponding estimates for 1999 that were reported at the same time last year. The estimates for investments in the current year show a moderate increase of two per cent.

The estimates for investments in mining and quarrying, manufacturing and electricity supply for the year 2000 come to NOK 14.3 billion. This is three per cent lower than the corresponding estimates for 1999 that were reported at the same time last year. The decrease is related to a reduction in the investment plans for electricity supply, where the plans for the year 2000 are fifteen per cent lower than the 1999 estimate. There is great uncertainty in electricity supply about some major projects, and this explains much of the fifteen per cent decline.

Manufacturing had an increase of two per cent in its investment estimates. Electrical and optical equipment had a 100 per cent increase, the biggest by far. The greatest decline was a reduction of 26 per cent for machinery and equipment. For the other industries the changes in the investment estimates for next year were smaller.

Lower Than in 1998

The investment estimates for 1999 are seventeen per cent lower than the corresponding estimates made at the same time last year for 1998. This may be partly explained by the completion of certain projects combined with increased uncertainty about profitability as a result of the rise in interest rates last autumn.

Figures reported in the second quarter this year for 1999 show a moderate upward adjustment of the estimate for 1999 compared with the estimates for the year based on reports in the previous quarter.

New Statistics
Investment statistics. Manufacturing, mining and quarrying, electricity supply, first quarter 1999.
The statistics are published quarterly in the Weekly Bulletin of Statistics. For more information, contact: Benn.Torjesen@ssb.no, tel.: +47 21 09 47 20.

Weekly Bulletin issue no. 23, 1999