bought by the oil companies. consequently, these operations should not have any impact on the real exchange rate. in 2015, government spending of petroleum revenues over the budget is estimated to be higher than the revenues received in kroner. government petroleum revenue spending over the budget has increased over time, in pace with the increasing size of the fund. and recently, the government ’ s net cash flow from the petroleum sector started to decline. as a consequence, norges bank will move from a position of selling surplus kroner to selling foreign currency in order to finance petroleum revenue spending. however, the effect on the real exchange rate will still be determined by the amount of petroleum revenues spent over the fiscal budget. it is not norges bank ’ s intention to influence the krone exchange rate through these foreign exchange transactions. accordingly, purchases are distributed evenly through the year. at the end of each month, norges bank announces the size of the daily purchases or sales of kroner for the coming month, based on estimates of oil revenues and fiscal spending. the amount can be interpreted as our best estimate for the remaining months of the year. the economic outlook let me now turn to the outlook for the norwegian economy. we are about to leave behind us 15 golden years. the norwegian economy has made use of favourable tailwinds and seized the opportunities offered. the other side of the coin is an economy that has become increasingly dependent on oil, and thereby more vulnerable to changes in oil prices and petroleum revenues. and as we know, oil prices have fallen by nearly 50 percent since last summer. the vulnerability manifests itself in several ways. a large share of the business sector and the labour market is linked to the petroleum sector in norway and in other countries. revenues received from the state ’ s direct financial interest in the petroleum sector ( sdfi ). bis central bankers ’ speeches petroleum investment, which has long been an important driver of growth in the norwegian economy, is now expected to fall in the years ahead. the fall in oil prices in recent months has accelerated and amplified an announced decline in the activity level on the norwegian continental shelf. lower oil prices reduce oil company cash flows and reduce the profitability of new investments. field development projects that are now underway will be affected, although to a limited extent. in addition, some new projects may be postponed or cancelled. lower demand for goods and services from the petroleum sector has spillover effects on the mainland economy, with a dampening effect on labour demand

, where only authorised users can transact on our blockchain network. confidentiality and responsibility – we believe that even in the future, financial transactions will continue to be governed by today ’ s standards as far as confidentiality and acceptance of responsibility for effected transactions go. that ’ s why each individual transaction is encrypted, along with the identities of the transacting parties. our conceptual study shows that blockchain technology can be adapted to meet the current needs and requirements of the financial system. the prototype works. having said that, its further development for mass use is still presenting many challenges. the conceptual study is far from being market - ready. we are currently only at the preliminary stage with a test application, with which we are able to simulate large - volume delivery - versuspayment securities transactions. at this point, we are unable to say whether this application can be adapted for mass use or whether this is even a viable option in terms of costs. so, to summarise : our joint project has seen the development of an elementary, but functional, blockchain - based application, which caters to the basic requirements of the financial sector. with this as our starting point, we aim to develop a technically more sophisticated prototype, capable of providing information on technical performance and thus allowing comparison with our present settlement infrastructure. 2 / 2 bis central bankers'speeches