Norway's booming economy will trigger faster rate rise, statistics office says

OSLO (Reuters) - The Norwegian economy is growing faster than expected this year and inflation is accelerating, which will likely trigger a more rapid increase of interest rates by the central bank, Statistics Norway (SSB) said on Friday.

"We are heading into an economic boom. Meanwhile, we have record-high inflation, which suggests that the key policy rate will be raised relatively quickly," SSB researcher Thomas von Brasch said in a statement.

The agency predicted that Norges Bank will hike rates by 50 basis points later this month - the largest hike in over a decade and double the central bank's own official forecast of a 25 basis points increase.

Norway's core inflation rose to 3.4% year-on-year in May from 2.6% in April, SSB separately reported on Friday, while analysts on average had expected a reading of 3.1%.

(Reporting by Terje Solsvik, editing by Gwladys Fouche)