was not sufficiently independent. we also learnt that we must ensure clear responsibilities and limits to delegation. the fund is a long - term savings plan and capable of riding out large market swings. this is the very foundation of the investment strategy with its high allocation to equities. our ability to adhere to this strategy in a critical phase – even if this should last some time – is crucial if the fund is to deliver the returns we expect in the longer term. norges bank ’ s executive board has reinforced its oversight of the bank ’ s investment management. it has issued a new mandate that delegates investment management responsibility and introduces additional limits in the risk profile for investment management. as with the fund ’ s long - term investment strategy based on active management and active ownership, the results of our operational management of the fund need to be measured over time. to that extent, we need to maintain an incentive structure in order to retain and build long - term competence. we also need to ensure the quality of the investment management. in our view, the search for excess return has had a strong disciplinary effect on the organisation. i am confident that the operation we have built up will deliver good results in the long term. thank you for your attention!

liquidity crisis in the financial system which gradually came to encompass a crisis in the real economy. the contraction in the world economy has resulted in a substantial decline in traditional exports, and global trade has fallen markedly since autumn last year. the global downturn also led to a marked fall in prices for oil and other commodities through autumn 2008. for norway and other countries that are dependent on exports of oil, gas and other commodities, government revenues and current account surpluses are reduced. this will most likely curb the growth of sovereign wealth funds in the near - term future. the financial crisis dealt a heavy blow to investors all over the world, as global equity prices plummeted. international stock exchanges lost more of their value in 2008 than in any other single year in recent history. absolute results, especially with regard to equities, were highly abnormal. an investor such as the government pension fund – global will possibly earn more in the long term because of wide fluctuations in equity values. many investors have suffered losses on equities. as a result of this experience, required returns will be higher in the future. for investments in fixed income markets, the picture is more varied. the crisis resulted in large and unexpected fluctuations in various parts of the fixed income market. while government bonds in some countries were regarded as “ safe havens ”, with a subsequent surge in prices, segments of the fixed income market were hit by higher credit premiums and dwindling liquidity. the crisis presented major challenges for risk management. historical relationships between risk factors collapsed, and liquidity was greatly reduced in most markets. market volatility was very high in both equity and fixed income markets, and market movements were on par with the most volatile periods of the past century. clearly, these adverse developments have affected many sovereign wealth funds ( swfs ) in the same way as they have affected other investors. it is, however, difficult to determine how strong the impact has been as available information about individual swfs and their inflows, outflows, return and market values vary. let me therefore use the norwegian government pension fund – global as an example. as you can see from this chart, the norwegian fund is among the largest sovereign wealth funds, with total assets of some usd 350 billion at end - 2008. the norwegian government pension fund – global before i talk about the fund ’ s performance last year, please allow me to explain the principles and strategies underlying the fund. the norwegian oil era started some 40