Norway sees lower asylum arrivals this year

OSLO (Reuters) - Norway lowered on Monday its 2016 forecast for asylum arrivals, which will be used for for this year's revised budget, due to increased border controls in Europe. The Scandinavian country now sees between 5,000 and 50,0000 asylum seekers this year with the "most likely" number at 25,000 arrivals compared to an earlier view of 33,000 in the autum, the justice ministry said in a statement. "The uncertainty is still large, but the border controls that have been implemented in Europe have resulted in low numbers of applications in Norway," it said. In October the government put forward a revised spending cost due to the increase in asylum applicants. It then saw the overall cost of asylum seekers rising by 9.5 billion crowns ($1.14 billion) in 2016. The government will disclose the fiscal impact of Monday's fresh forecast in May, in connection with the revised budget for this year. (Reporting by Stine Jacobsen, editing by Gwladys Fouche)