Norway has increased interest rates for a second time this year to 1.75 per cent and plans a further rise next month to counter what the central bank described as “persistent global price pressures”.
The central bank raised borrowing costs 0.5 percentage points on Thursday, following a similar move in June. It plans another increase next month to counter inflation which is now at 6.8 per cent — more than three times higher than the central bank’s target of 2 per cent.
“A markedly higher policy rate is needed to ease the pressures in the Norwegian economy and to bring inflation down towards the target,” said Ida Wolden Bache, governor of Norges Bank.