in today ’ s situation, the forward guidance is intended to signal low interest rates for an extended period of time in order to sustain inflation and boost growth. other unconventional monetary policy actions are also in use. with large - scale securities purchases, the central banks in the us, the uk and japan have sought to reduce long - term interest rates and thereby funding costs for firms and households. the provision of liquidity has also led to higher equity and securities prices. the us federal reserve started tapering asset purchases last year, resulting in a slight, renewed increase in long - term interest rates. chart 4 : gdp for trading partners growth among our trading partners picked up in the latter half of 2013, particularly in the us. although euro - area growth has also improved, unemployment and debt levels remain elevated. emerging economies are growing at a clearly faster pace than advanced economies, but the pace has slackened somewhat. a number of emerging economies have bis central bankers ’ speeches been affected by capital outflows and currency depreciation. the tapering of asset purchases by the us federal reserve has likely also contributed to these developments. countries with large current account deficits are particularly hard hit. chart 5 : consumer prices abroad inflation has fallen in many countries over that past few years. euro area inflation fell to a very low level in 2013, fuelling fears of deflation. however, a portion of the decline in inflation is related to developments in food and energy prices. furthermore, the decline has been most pronounced in periphery countries. in those countries, negative or very low price growth reflects a need for improving competitiveness. in the core countries, such as germany and france, inflation has remained on a steadier course. long - term inflation expectations seem to be firmly anchored in most advanced economies. chart 6 : gdp for mainland norway growth in the norwegian economy slowed through 2013. the slowdown was most pronounced in the construction and oil supplier industries. some export industries were also affected by weak demand in europe and high cost levels. growth in household demand was moderate in 2013. household saving increased further and is now at a historically high level. unemployment edged up through 2013. capacity utilisation in the economy is still assessed to be close to a normal a level. chart7 : the krone exchange rate after appreciating over a longer period, the krone showed a pronounced weakening in 2013. both domestic and international conditions contributed to the depreciation. signs of weaker growth in the norwegian economy probably

of workers in the economy. the discussion on productivity sounds very theoretical. however, for illustration, if we were to close the productivity gap vis - a - vis the oecd average, we would increase the standard of living by about a third, which is about the increase we would gain in per capita gdp. in this regard, we can look at, for example, the construction industry, which employs about 7. 5 percent of those employed in the business sector – a clear domestic industry – and let ’ s examine the output per worker in this industry over a long period of time. productivity in the industry declined in the 1970s and 1980s, and has remained at a virtual standstill since the 1990s, in contrast to an increase in productivity in manufacturing, which was accelerated since the exposure program in the 1990s, and the agriculture industry in which there was a moderate increase in productivity over the entire period. the construction industry, which “ benefits ” from the availability of foreign workers, whose salary is low relative to domestic workers with similar characteristics, suffers from a significant lag in technology. the government ’ s recent decision, to allow foreign contracting firms to enter into residential construction projects, if implemented at a significant scope, is likely to contribute to a turnaround in the trend of productivity in the industry – companies that will bring advanced bis central bankers ’ speeches technologies to israel will force the local contractors to increase efficiency too, and in the long term will contribute to an increase in the wages of domestic workers in the industry. the level of public services shows a mixed picture – in industries in which adequate investment was made in recent years, whether in physical infrastructure or in an appropriate work force, we benefit from the return on the investment, in the form of high quality of level of services. yet at the same time, in industries in which appropriate investment was not or is not made, the service level is low or is expected to be negatively impacted. it is important to emphasize that the return on public investment, or the harm from a lack of such investment, are not seen immediately. we currently benefit from past investments, and begin to feel the impact in areas in which investment was not sufficient. i will illustrate with several examples from various industries : the current level of health services is good by international comparison, as indicated by public satisfaction surveys ( and as reflected as well in a relatively high life expectancy, low infant mortality, etc. ). however, various indicators show that the physical and human infrastructures are very