Norway Defends Wealth Fund’s Guidelines as Child Labor Debated

Norway’s finance minister, Jan Tore Sanner, defended the investing guidelines of his country’s wealth fund after lawmakers demanded to know why its portfolio includes companies that are exposed to child labor.

The world’s biggest sovereign investment vehicle has acknowledged that it holds a number of stocks that, through their supply chains, rely on the work of minors to generate a profit. The fund, which oversees $1.4 trillion in assets, has said it expects companies to “work against” the practice, but also pointed to “complex underlying causes” that make the issue difficult to address.