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Denmark bullish on foreign investments

The Danish foreign ministry says that it helped 68 foreign companies invest directly in the country in 2016.

Published: 14 March 2017 09:40 CET

Denmark bullish on foreign investments

Photo: Iris/Scanpix

In a press release, the ministry said that its Invest in Denmark department, which assists collaboration between local regions and stakeholders to promote investment in the country, it had achieved an annual result “in line with the previous year’s record”.

The ministry employs specialised staff in Denmark and abroad to facilitate foreign investment in the country.

Of the 68 foreign investments registered through Invest in Denmark in 2016, 26 of these were classified as “high quality” projects, according to the ministry. This means that they were either high in volume or that the investors had a low amount of knowledge of Denmark before investing, according to a Ministry of Foreign Affairs press release.

The 26 “high quality” investments represent a 20 per cent increase in investment of this type on 2015, says the ministry.

The result is a sign of the “number of high quality projects with high direct and indirect impact on economic growth and competences in Denmark,” said the ministry press release.

Companies that established themselves in Denmark in 2016 include US ozone technology and environmental solutions firm Piper Environmental Group; freight company Maurice Ward, which opened a Scandinavian hub in Billund; and Japanese giant Mitsubishi Rayon, which set up a joint venture with Danish components manufacturer Fiberline.

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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