One government CAN spend wisely: Everyone in Norway becomes a millionaire as parliament's cash stockpiles reach 1,000,000 kroner for each person

Sovereign wealth fund ballooned due to high oil and gas prices

Set up in 1990, the fund owns around 1 percent of the world's stocks

Money is equivalent to £100,000 in sterling per person



Norwegians will not be able to access or spend the money



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.

Boom: 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. Pictured: Bergen

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

SO CAN NORWEGIANS ACCESS THIS MONEY?

The amount is only equivalent to just under £100,000 in sterling. 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. But the oil wealth may have made some people reluctant to work - according to Oeystein Doerum, chief economist at DNB Markets 'one in five people of working age receives some kind of social insurance instead of working.' But Norway is expensive. Oslo, where a pint of beer costs £5, is the world's most expensive capital according to the Economist. Dinner for two in an average restaurant can easily cost £200.



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.