Growth in the Norwegian business sector has declined slightly over the past three months while the outlook for the next half year is more optimistic, a central bank business survey showed on Tuesday.

Contacts expect activity to pick up again, and they are more optimistic than in November, primarily owing to the rollout of vaccines, Norges Bank said.

The sentiment index, most of which was collected from Jan. 25Feb. 12, is one of the last domestic data releases ahead of Norges Banks March 18 monetary policy meeting.

Reporting by Terje Solsvik, editing by Gwladys Fouche

Source Reuters