Norway wealth fund hits record 20 trillion crowns

OSLO (Reuters) – The value of Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, the world’s largest, rose to a record 20 trillion Norwegian crowns ($1.80 trillion) on Friday, doubling its value in just five years as oil and gas revenue flowed in and stock markets rose.

Built since 1996 as rainy-day savings, the fund owns about 1.5% of all listed stocks globally and has grown to almost four times the size of Norway’s annual gross domestic product, far exceeding original projections.

The fund’s value was comparable in size to the annual GDP of Australia, a country with five times the population of Norway.

The fund did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

($1 = 11.0855 Norwegian crowns)

(Reporting by Terje Solsvik and Gwladys Fouche, editing by Louise Rasmussen)