Financial stability Developments in real economic variables are mirrored in credit markets. In recent years, household income has shown solid growth, and household confidence has been high. However, corporate earnings have been low, and until recently enterprises have primarily focused on enhancing efficiency. Credit developments are giving ambiguous signals to our interest-rate setting. Growth in household borrowing is high, but enterprises have reduced debt. The change in the breakdown of credit may have been amplified by banks’ increased eagerness to extend credit to households after a period of losses on loans to the business sector. Some reports from our regional network indicate that are some liquidity constraints for the business sector in some areas. According to reports from Northern Norway, banks seem to have become more cautious in extending loans to the business sector. Banks are requiring higher levels of capital and earning capacity. Total credit is expanding broadly in line with normal growth in nominal GDP. Developments in credit to enterprises shadow developments in their investments. Low credit growth indicates that corporate investment in the mainland economy has still not picked up even though there seem to be signs that the decline is levelling out somewhat. Norwegian households generally finance their mortgages at an interest rate that follows the short-term money market rate. Floating interest rates tend to vary widely over time. The interest rate level is very low at present, and long-term investments cannot rely on this interest rate spanning the life of a housing loan.
Moreover, there now seems to be a tendency towards investing in property and taking up loans at a more mature age so that younger generations not only inherit dwellings, but debt as well. Both debt and wealth are on the rise for these more mature age groups. Sharp increases in asset prices and debt accumulation may pose a risk to economic stability. With a view to mitigating this risk, it will be appropriate in some situations to apply a somewhat longer time horizon than the usual two years to attain the inflation target. At present, however, debt accumulation is high only in the household sector. There is little borrowing activity in the enterprise sector. House prices are rising, but prices for office space are stable. Output and employment are at trend level. Unemployment is on a par with the average for the 1990s, wage growth is consistent with the inflation target, credit growth is close to long-term nominal GDP growth, relative labour costs and prices are approximately at the same level as the average for the past 30 years and the interest rate differential is close to zero. But inflation is low, as a result of the lagged effects of the strong krone, low import prices and high productivity growth. The analyses in the inflation report indicate that inflation will remain low this year, picking up thereafter. The krone depreciation since January 2003 is expected to push up prices for imported consumer goods.