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BUSINESS

Study: German business likes Munich best

As a location to do business, Munich tops the list among German businesspeople, according to a new survey. The local work force, infrastructure and quality of life put the Bavarian capital in first place.

Study: German business likes Munich best
Photo: dpa

The auditing firm Ernst & Young, which conducted the survey, asked 100 business professionals in Germany’s 20 largest cities about 29 characteristics, including the cost of doing business, salary levels, the quality of the work force, local administration and the image of their city.

Munich landed on top, followed by Hannover, Düsseldorf, Nuremberg and Bonn.

The Bavarian capital got high marks for its universities, regional government policies and the social climate of the city. On the negative side, those surveyed said the city suffers from a housing shortage and has a relatively high cost of living.

Pulling up the rear in the rankings were former industrial cities that have fallen on hard times, such as Bochum, Wuppertal and Duisburg.

While the capital Berlin got praise for good transport connections, when it came to schools, kindergartens and corporate structure, the German capital ranked last.

ENVIRONMENT

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

The Swedish steel giant SSAB has announced plans to build a new steel plant in Luleå for 52 billion kronor (€4.5 billion), with the new plant expected to produce 2.5 million tons of steel a year from 2028.

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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