Moderate Increase in Investment in 2004

According to the results of the spring 2004 investment survey, investment in manufacturing expressed in current prices was set to grow by 6.6 percent in 2004. In the autumn 2003 investment survey, enterprises had expected their investments in 2004 to stay at the same level as in 2003. Seen overall, this amounts to a strong upward revision since last autumn. The expected increase comes after two years of declining or shifting investments. The present survey found an increase in investment spending of 0.5 percent for 2003, a growth that needs to be seen against lower investment spending in 2002. At -14.8 percent, the decline of 2002 was steeper than had been expected last autumn (-10.4 percent).