Norway central bank raises key rate to fight inflation

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Norway’s central bank on Thursday raised its key policy interest rate by a quarter-percentage point to 2.25%, as other banks around the world also move to bring down inflation.

Norges Bank said inflation — which reached 6.5% in August — “has risen rapidly over the past months and has been far higher than projected.”

“Inflation is markedly above our target of 2%, and there are prospects that inflation will remain high for longer than projected earlier,” Governor Ida Wolden Bache said in a statement.

The central bank added that there were “now clear signs of a cooling economy. Easing pressures in the economy will contribute to curbing inflation further out.“

Norges Bank noted that “a faster rate rise now will reduce the risk of inflation becoming entrenched at a high level and the need for a sharper tightening of monetary policy further out.”

The policy rate will most likely be raised further in November, it said.

It comes as central banks worldwide are making big rate increases to tackle inflation, which has surged as the global economy bounced back from the COVID-19 pandemic and then was hit by the fallout from Russia’s war in Ukraine.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Federal Reserve raised interest rates by three-quarters of a point rate for the third time in a row. In a busy day for central banks, Swiss monetary policymakers carried out the biggest hike ever to the key interest rate Thursday, while the Bank of England is under pressure to act aggressively, too.

Earlier this month, the European Central Bank also hiked its rate by three-quarters of a point. Norway is not part of the European Union.