Today in Norway: A roundup of the latest news on Wednesday
Norway’s sovereign wealth fund sees massive returns, more than 10,000 students in the housing queue, and Storm Hans one of Norway’s most expensive natural disasters. These are the headlines from Wednesday.
Norway’s wealth fund sees massive returns
Norway’s sovereign wealth fund earned 131 billion euros in the first half of the year, the country’s central bank said on Tuesday evening.
The performance represented a return of 10 percent and boosted the fund’s value to 15,299 billion kroner (1,332 billion euros) at the end of June.
The fund managed to more or less wipe out the huge losses incurred last year caused by the war in Ukraine and the subsequent global economic downturn.
Norway’s wealth fund is the World’s biggest and is funded by revenues from Norway’s state-owned oil and gas companies. The fund is aimed at financing future spending.
Roughly 10,500 students remain in a housing queue
More than 20,400 students have received a place in student accommodation so far this year, according to a confederation of student organisations. At the same time, there are around 10,500 students still in the queue for housing.
“There is still a significant proportion of students who want to live in our student accommodation but who are unfortunately on a waiting list. We have allocated far more housing this year than last year, but the need is still great,” Audhild Kvam, chairman of a confederation of student associations, said in a press release.
Municipalities and student housing associations have been working to create extra temporary places so students are accommodated for the start of their studies. This means solutions such as temporary dormitories and agreements with hotels.
Labour Party in Oslo at a 14-year low in the polls
The Labour Party in Oslo has suffered a drop off in the polls of 3.9 percentage points compared to the month before, the newspaper Aftenposten reports.
In the polls, the Labour Party received 15.2 percent of support. This is the lowest for the party in Oslo in 14 years.
“My reaction is that we want a much better result than this here. Then we must wait until election day. There are quite a few hundreds of thousands of voters who will have to decide now,” Andreas Halse, the Labour Party’s group leader on the Oslo City Council, told Aftenposten.
Storm Hans is one of the most expensive natural disasters in Norway ever
Storm Hans was one of the most expensive natural disasters to hit Norway, and around 7,000 insurance claims have been registered so far.
The damage reported to buildings, contents and land is estimated to have cost around 1.6 billion kroner.
“I think we can state that this is one of the most expensive natural disasters to have hit Norway. If not the most expensive,” Jan Erik Fåne at Finans Norge told Norwegian newswire NTB.
The figure didn’t include the cost of public infrastructure that had been damaged or the damage sustained by cars and mobile homes.
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Norway’s wealth fund sees massive returns
Norway’s sovereign wealth fund earned 131 billion euros in the first half of the year, the country’s central bank said on Tuesday evening.
The performance represented a return of 10 percent and boosted the fund’s value to 15,299 billion kroner (1,332 billion euros) at the end of June.
The fund managed to more or less wipe out the huge losses incurred last year caused by the war in Ukraine and the subsequent global economic downturn.
Norway’s wealth fund is the World’s biggest and is funded by revenues from Norway’s state-owned oil and gas companies. The fund is aimed at financing future spending.
Roughly 10,500 students remain in a housing queue
More than 20,400 students have received a place in student accommodation so far this year, according to a confederation of student organisations. At the same time, there are around 10,500 students still in the queue for housing.
“There is still a significant proportion of students who want to live in our student accommodation but who are unfortunately on a waiting list. We have allocated far more housing this year than last year, but the need is still great,” Audhild Kvam, chairman of a confederation of student associations, said in a press release.
Municipalities and student housing associations have been working to create extra temporary places so students are accommodated for the start of their studies. This means solutions such as temporary dormitories and agreements with hotels.
Labour Party in Oslo at a 14-year low in the polls
The Labour Party in Oslo has suffered a drop off in the polls of 3.9 percentage points compared to the month before, the newspaper Aftenposten reports.
In the polls, the Labour Party received 15.2 percent of support. This is the lowest for the party in Oslo in 14 years.
“My reaction is that we want a much better result than this here. Then we must wait until election day. There are quite a few hundreds of thousands of voters who will have to decide now,” Andreas Halse, the Labour Party’s group leader on the Oslo City Council, told Aftenposten.
Storm Hans is one of the most expensive natural disasters in Norway ever
Storm Hans was one of the most expensive natural disasters to hit Norway, and around 7,000 insurance claims have been registered so far.
The damage reported to buildings, contents and land is estimated to have cost around 1.6 billion kroner.
“I think we can state that this is one of the most expensive natural disasters to have hit Norway. If not the most expensive,” Jan Erik Fåne at Finans Norge told Norwegian newswire NTB.
The figure didn’t include the cost of public infrastructure that had been damaged or the damage sustained by cars and mobile homes.
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