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German business confidence posts surprise rise in March

The key Ifo survey on German business confidence posted an unexpected jump in March on Wednesday, indicating surprising resilience in Europe's biggest economy.

Published: 26 March 2008 10:10 CET

In the closely watched business climate index, calculated each month by the Munich-based economic research institute Ifo, the March reading climbed to 104.8 points from 104.1 points in February.

Economists polled by Thomson Financial News had forecast the index would fall to 103.4 points.

“The results indicate that with the beginning of the year the German economy has gained strength,” Ifo president Hans-Werner Sinn said in a statement. “The outlook for the coming six months has also brightened somewhat,” he added.

For its monthly survey, Ifo polls 7,000 companies about their current business conditions and their outlook for the next six months. The survey showed relative optimism among German firms on both scores.

The business expectations sub-index, which measures the outlook for the

next six months, rose to an indexed 98.4 from 98.2 in February, while the six-month business assessment index showed a stronger gain to 111.5 from 110.3 last month. Analysts had expected the former figure to fall to 97.6 points and the latter to ease back to 109.5 points.

The climate indicators for the manufacturing and construction sectors both rose as well, while that for retailing fell slightly following a strong rise in February, Ifo said.

Sweden's SSAB to build €4.5bn green steel plant in Luleå

“The transformation of Luleå is a major step on our journey to fossil-free steel production,” the company’s chief executive, Martin Lindqvist, said in a press release. “We will remove seven percent of Sweden’s carbon dioxide emissions, strengthen our competitiveness and secure jobs with the most cost-effective and sustainable sheet metal production in Europe.”

The new mini-mill, which is expected to start production at the end of 2028 and to hit full capacity in 2029, will include two electric arc furnaces, advanced secondary metallurgy, a direct strip rolling mill to produce SSABs specialty products, and a cold rolling complex to develop premium products for the transport industry.

It will be fed partly from hydrogen reduced iron ore produced at the HYBRIT joint venture in Gälliväre and partly with scrap steel. The company hopes to receive its environemntal permits by the end of 2024.

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The announcement comes just one week after SSAB revealed that it was seeking $500m in funding from the US government to develop a second HYBRIT manufacturing facility, using green hydrogen instead of fossil fuels to produce direct reduced iron and steel.

The company said it also hoped to expand capacity at SSAB’s steel mill in Montpelier, Iowa.

The two new investment announcements strengthen the company’s claim to be the global pioneer in fossil-free steel.

It produced the world’s first sponge iron made with hydrogen instead of coke at its Hybrit pilot plant in Luleå in 2021. Gälliväre was chosen that same year as the site for the world’s first industrial scale plant using the technology.

In 2023, SSAB announced it would transform its steel mill in Oxelösund to fossil-free production.

The company’s Raahe mill in Finland, which currently has new most advanced equipment, will be the last of the company’s big plants to shift away from blast furnaces.

The steel industry currently produces 7 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions, and shifting to hydrogen reduced steel and closing blast furnaces will reduce Sweden’s carbon emissions by 10 per cent and Finland’s by 7 per cent.

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