report particularly strong growth. the interviews reflect optimism with respect to the next half year with confidence in continued growth. the service sector and suppliers to the petroleum industry are also expecting the strongest growth ahead. with the exception of retail trade, all industries appear to be increasing investment. construction of day - care centres is pushing up investment in the local government sector. investment is still high in the service sector, but high investment over the past year is pushing down growth ahead. in general, profitability developments are favourable. the retail industry reports unchanged profitability, while the building and construction industry has reported an improvement in profitability. profitability growth in the export and service industries appears to be solid. employment is rising in the region and unemployment is at its lowest level for five years. for manufacturing and retail, the rate of employment seems to be constant, while the construction and service sectors are showing a clear rise. there are clear indications of growth in employment in the local government sector. skills shortages are increasingly being perceived as a constraint on production growth. in the retail sector and household service industry, prices are expected to show only a moderate rise in the period ahead. in the building and construction industry, there are now more signals of rising prices. consumer price inflation has edged up, but is still very low even 2½ years after the cyclical change. the year - on - year rise in the consumer price index ( cpi ) was 2. 4 per cent in march. price impulses from consumer goods that are imported to norway have been negative in almost all the years since the mid - 1990s, reflecting the liberalisation of international trade and the shift in imports towards lowcost countries. the rise in prices for domestically produced goods and services slowed somewhat towards the end of 2005 and into 2006. the 12 - month rise in prices for these products is estimated at 1. 6 per cent in march adjusted for the effects of lower maximum day - care rates. however, several factors point towards rising inflation. capacity utilisation in the norwegian economy is increasing, and tighter labour market conditions may result in higher wage growth in the coming years. the rise in oil prices is resulting in higher input costs for producers. as a rule, monetary policy shall not take account of the direct effects on consumer prices resulting from changes in the interest rate level, taxes, excise duties and extraordinary, temporary disturbances. however, there is no certain method for distinguishing extraordinary, temporary disturbances from more long - lasting price changes. the inflation measure cpi

compromise was finally struck : the national bank would maintain its commercial activities and cede responsibility for monetary policy – along with all corresponding assets and liabilities – to a new institution, which would simply be called the bank of greece. and so it was. with a league of nations protocol as its birth certificate, the new bank began its operations in the spring of 1928. the product of an unpalatable deal to obtain much needed foreign credit, the bank was greeted with scepticism, if not outright animosity at first. as horace finlayson, the british consultant appointed to monitor the agreement in athens would explain in a letter to sir otto niemeyer, the director of the bank of england : “ the private banks still assume an attitude of sullen hostility [ … ]. this is bound to continue so long as the bank of greece continues to work in a position of semi - complete isolation. for the time being, it is nobody ’ s child and its real activities are little more than those of a rather pretentious exchange - shop. ” 1 those lines were written in october 1928. a year later, stock markets in the city of london and 1 / 3 bis central bankers'speeches wall street would crash, heralding a series of events that would bring inter - war central bank cooperation and the gold standard crashing down with them. greece ’ s stabilisation proved shortlived : by 1932, the country was off gold and back in default. as a newly born orphan, the bank thus took its first steps in the years of the great depression. it spent its early childhood navigating the treacherous waters of the thirties, tangled in the web of barter agreements and foreign exchange controls that had become the norm. interestingly enough, it was these very dire circumstances that helped transform the “ rather pretentious exchange - shop ” into a powerful agent of economic policy. on the one hand, the advent of the crisis forced commercial banks to come knocking to the door of their lender of last resort. on the other, the sudden retreat of the economic liberalism signalled the triumph of discretion over automaticity : as economic policy became more interventionist, the authority of the bank of greece expanded. on the eve of the second world war, the orphan had emerged as a fully - fledged banking institution, albeit one closer to the state than originally envisaged. the war brought further loss of independence, along with crippling hyperinflation, before stability was