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Sweden tops new transparency ranking

Sweden, along with Denmark and New Zealand, achieved the highest score in a new survey ranking 180 countries on perceived levels of public-sector corruption.

Published: 23 September 2008 13:00 CEST

The Corruption Perception Index (CPI) is issued annually by Berlin-based Transparency International and ranks countries on a scale of zero to ten according to their perceived levels of corruption, with a higher score indicating less perceived corruption.

While Sweden’s overall score of 9.3 matched the mark it achieved in the 2007 edition of the survey, a fall by neighboring Finland opened up a spot at the top of this year’s ranking, along with Denmark and New Zealand.

The top-ranking trio from the 2008 survey is followed immediately in the index by Singapore at 9.2, with Finland and Switzerland coming next with scores of 9.0.

Iceland achieved a score of 8.9, while Norway ranked lowest of all the Scandinavian countries with a score of 7.9.

The CPI is a composite index, which aggregates results published in different expert and business surveys about countries’ perceived level of corruption.

The lowest ranked country in this year’s index is Somalia at 1.0.

Ranking slightly better, are Iraq and Myanmar at 1.3, followed by Haiti at 1.4.

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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