How Norway manages its $2.25 trillion fund

00:00Prime Minister, you have a little fund in Norway, the sovereign fund. I looked at, I just checked, it's reached two... Two and a quarter trillion dollars. You have what, 5 million people in Norway? Like, I'm sure I've... close to half a million dollars per person. What are you going to do with it? Share with the fins.

00:25What we are doing is we live in a generation where we are transferring value from energy that is being sold mainly to Europe into a fund that will fund pensions in the future in Norway. So this is, you know, when oil prices go up and down, nothing goes into my budget. It goes into this fund. And from that fund, we can spend 3% or less of interest. a year. So basically, we have not spent any money from that fund. only part of the interest and it's meant to be there for future generations. It basically is meant to be a fund there for ever. if it is well protected. And it is differing from sovereign wealth funds in the Gulf, for example, where they are strategic funds, which are being used by major shares, we never take more than

01:15Basically, 1 to 2 or 3% shares of companies. It is owning... shares in about 7,000 to 8,000. Companies around the world is an index fund. But you do have some ethical guidelines, for example, relating to Israel-Gaza. You have it. I mean, we are not, the fund is supposed to invest in countries that respect, you know, basic international conventions. We have not investing in companies that are in a major way invested in code. tobacco companies and so on. And now we have a review of those principles so that a fund which is basically owned by all Norwegian and future generations live up to basically the values we have as a people. So it is a major responsibility to manage that over time. and to manage our economy in a way. You know, you can explain to people that the government cannot use money that you don't have.

02:11I can tell you it's harder to explain that you cannot use money that you do have.