Norway’s sovereign wealth fund has ballooned so much due to high oil and gas prices that every person in the country became a theoretical millionaire this week.
The Nordic nation is proving to be an exception as others struggle under a mountain of debts.
Set up in 1990, the fund owns around 1 percent of the world's stocks, as well as bonds and real estate from London to Boston.
The surplus revenue is collected in the Government Pension Fund Global.
A preliminary counter on the website of the central bank, which manages the fund, rose to 5.11 trillion kroner (£503.46 billion/$828.66 billion).
This equates to fractionally more than a million times Norway's most recent official population estimate of 5,096,300.
It was the first time it reached the equivalent of a million kroner each, central bank spokesman Thomas Sevang said.
Not that Norwegians will be able to access or spend the money - it is squirreled away for a rainy day for them and future generations.
Norway has resisted the temptation to splurge all the windfall since striking oil in the North Sea in 1969.
Finance Minister Siv Jensen told Reuters the fund, called the Government Pension Fund Global, had helped iron out big, unpredictable swings in oil and gas prices.
Norway is the world's number seven oil exporter.
'Many countries have found that temporary large revenues from natural resource exploitation produce relatively short-lived booms that are followed by difficult adjustments,' she said in an email.
The fund, equivalent to 183 percent of 2013 gross domestic product, is expected to peak at 220 percent around 2030.
'The fund is a success in the sense that parliament has managed to put aside money for the future. There are many examples of countries that have mot managed that,' said Oeystein Doerum, chief economist at DNB Markets.
Norway has sought to avoid the boom and bust cycle by investing the cash abroad, rather than at home.
Governments can spend 4 percent of the fund in Norway each year, slightly more than the annual return on investment.
Still, in Norway, oil wealth may have made the state reluctant to make reforms or cut subsidies unthinkable elsewhere.
Farm subsidies allow farmers, for instance, to keep dairy cows in heated barns in the Arctic.
It may also have made some Norwegians reluctant to work.
'One in five people of working age receives some kind of social insurance instead of working,' Doerum said, despite an official unemployment rate of 3.3 percent.
据英国《每日邮报》1月9日报道，在石油与天然气价格走高的拉动下，挪威的主权财富基金不断膨胀，以至于挪威所有国民本周在理论上都成为了百万富翁。
作为全球最大的主权财富基金，挪威的主权基金成立于1990年，不仅拥有1%的全球股票，还拥有英美等国的债券、房地产等。在许多国家债台高筑之际，挪威成为了一个耀眼的特例。
根据管理这笔资金的挪威央行初步统计，基金总额达到了5.11万亿克朗（约合8286.6亿美元）。而根据最新统计，挪威人口只有509.6万人，理论上来计算，每个国民可以分到100万克朗。挪威央行发言人托马斯·塞万（Thomas Sevang）表示，这是首次达到人均100万克朗。
但是，挪威人并不能够将这笔钱一份了之，而是用于不时之需和留给后世子孙。挪威财政大臣西夫·延森表示，挪威政府全球养老基金帮助该国从容应对石油、天然气价格的大幅波动。她表示：“许多国家发现，开采天然资源之后的短时巨额收入往往只能带来相对短暂的繁荣，之后便是艰难的调整期。”挪威是世界第七大石油出口国。
DNB市场公司首席经济学家德拉姆表示：“该基金大获成功，议会得以为未来储备了一笔资金，许多国家并未能做到这样。”
为了避免出现繁荣与萧条的周期性波动，挪威将资金投向国外而非国内。每年，挪威政府可以动用基金中4%的款项，略高于基金投资年收益。
然而，石油财富还是让挪威不愿意进行改革或者削减在其他国家难以企及的补贴，也让一些挪威人不愿意去工作。德拉姆说，目前挪威五分之一的适龄劳动人口在领取社保，而不去工作。
