Norway Economic Activity Shrank 14% in March

Norway's economic activity excluding the offshore oil and gas industry fell 14% as of the end of March compared with the end of February, preliminary data from Statistics Norway showed on Wednesday in a new snapshot look at how the economy is doing.

Economic activity has contracted rapidly after a lockdown was imposed in mid-March in a bid to curb the COVID-19 outbreak.

The new statistical format is different from the traditional measurement of month-on-month gross domestic product, in that it seeks to capture a snapshot of the economy at a given moment, rather than for the month as a whole, SSB said.

"This is an attempt to estimate the state of the economy compared to what the situation was at the start of the month," it added.

Hotels and restaurants were among the worst-hit sectors with an estimated 59% decline in activity, while transportation fell by 36% as most air travel seized up and many people began working from home, the data showed. 

(Reporting by Terje Solsvik; Editing by Hugh Lawson and Nick Macfie)