This figure was clearly stronger than we had forecasted. As expected manufacturing and electricity pulled down and construction up. The main surprise was the service sector which grew much stronger than expected. Growth in the retail sector was 0.8%, hard to understand given the weak retail figures. The rest of private services grew by 1.2%.
The demand picture was also a bit on the strong side to our forecast with mainland demand growing 0.5% q/q, but that was after a drop by 0.5 last quarter.
Today’s figures are on the upside to Norges Bank and could indicate that capacity utilization is keeping up better than Norges Bank has forecasted. Both growth and CPI is now on the upside to Norges Bank’s view while NOK is much weaker. At the moment information points to an upward revision of the coming March interest rate forecast.
Total mainland is nothing to care about. Oil production is volatile and on a declining trend. No impact on Norges Bank
Details:
Mainland GDP grew by 0.6 % q/q in Q4 compared to 0.5% in Q3
Nordea forecast was 0.2% while consensus and Norges Bank was 0.4%
Nordea