New measurement tools show stronger Norwegian economy

Money. Norwegian kroner.

A new means of measuring overall economic activity shows that the Norwegian economy is currently increasing its growth rate.

The new ‘Activity Index FNI’ (Financial News Index) shows growth increasing significantly in the second quarter over the first quarter of 2017, wrote Dagens Næringsliv newspaper.

The FNI Index was developed by researchers at the Center for Applied Macro and Petroleum Economics (Camp) at BI Norwegian Business School, and published in collaboration with the Retriever media surveillance company.

The FNI showed that the Norwegian mainland economy is back on the right track. Total activity in the economy is measured against gross national product (GDP).

While the official GDP survey for Norway is initially published in Statistics Norway’s (Statistisk Sentralbyrås) quarterly national accounts approximately a month and a half after the end of each quarter, the FNI index measures developments in GDP on a daily basis.

The so-called ‘real-time indicator’ is based on textual analyses of daily news articles from a selection of Norwegian newspapers.

‘Recent news reports suggest that growth will be higher in the second than in the first quarter’, said Professor Hilde C. Bjørnland, head of the ‘Camp-senteret’ at BI business school.

 

Source: NTB scanpix / Norway Today