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BUSINESS

German public finances in black for second year

The German economy clocked up a small surplus in its public finances in 2013, as growth picked up at the end of the year, official data showed on Tuesday.

Published: 25 February 2014 09:11 CET
German public finances in black for second year
German government finances were in the black for the second year in a row. Photo: DPA

"The federal state's financing surplus amounted to €0.3 billion in 2013," the federal statistics office Destatis said in a statement. "It is the second year in a row that a small financing surplus has been achieved."

At the same time, Destatis confirmed that gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 0.4 percent in the fourth quarter of 2013, fractionally faster than growth of 0.3 percent in the preceding quarter.
 
EU countries are obliged, under membership rules, to limit their public deficits to no more than three percent of GDP and to achieve balanced budgets or even surpluses in the longer term.
 
Germany, which has weathered the financial and economic crisis much better than most of its EU neighbours, already managed to run up a small surplus equivalent to 0.1 percent of GDP in 2012.
 
The financing surplus is the difference between the state's revenues and spending, which amounted to €1.2334 trillion and €1.2331 trillion respectively in 2013, the statement added.
 
 
Turning to the fourth-quarter growth data, Destatis confirmed its preliminary estimate released earlier this month that "Germany continued along its path of moderate growth at the year-end."
 
As previously calculated, GDP expanded by 0.4 percent in the period from October to December compared with 0.3 percent in the preceding three months.
 
Growth was driven primarily by foreign trade, with exports rising by 2.6 percent in the three-month period, while imports were up just 0.6 percent, the statisticians calculated.
 
"There were mixed signals from domestic demand," Destatis said.
 
"Investment in both equipment and in construction was up strongly over the third quarter. And the same time, there was a sharp reduction of inventories, which braked the growth momentum," the statement said.
 
"And there was little change in consumption, with state spending stagnating at the level of the previous quarter, while consumer spending slipped slightly by 0.1 percent," Destatis said.
 
Over 2013 as a whole, the German economy expanded by 0.4 percent, Destatis calculated.
 

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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.

Published: 2 April 2024 13:44 CEST
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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