The Government Pension Fund is the largest fund managed by NBIM. The Fund is a continuation of the former Petroleum Fund, which was established in 1990.

The Norwegian Storting adopted the Act relating to the Government Pension Fund in 2005. The Ministry of Finance is responsible for the management of the Fund, and has delegated responsibility for the operational management of the Fund's international assets to NBIM. The capital is invested in non-Norwegian financial instruments (bonds, equities, money market instruments and derivatives), and in 46 developed and emerging equity markets and 21 currencies for fixed income investments. NBIM manages the Fund partly internally and partly by engaging external managers

Market value of the Government Pension Fund Global at year-end 1998-2009. In billions of  NOK