BUSINESS IN 1955 will top this year's pace, but will not quite reach 1953's record high level, predicted the U.S. Government's Business Advisory Council, composed of 100 topflight U.S. businessmen.

END-OF-RECESSION SIGNS are multiplying. Unemployment is dropping, and manufacturers' $24.8 billion in new orders for September was the highest since mid-1953. Spurred by new military contracts, their unfilled orders jumped (up $400 million to $47.7 billion) for the first time in 14 months.

ARCTIC STEEL PLANT will soon make Norwegian heavy industry virtually self-sufficient for the first time. Huge new plant, built by British and German firms at a cost of $100 million, is being completed at Mo i Rana, near the Arctic Circle, will be ready early next year. Initial production: 200,000 tons of rolled-steel products yearly.

CAMPBELL SOUP, preparing to make a 1,300,000-share public stock issue, served up some piping-hot figures never before released. Campbell reported assets of $223 million, sales of $339 million in fiscal 1954, up more than fivefold since 1939, and net income last year of $23.6 million. Dividends have been paid every year since 1902 (current rate: $1.20 a share).

HOUSE-BUILDING BOOM is still picking up speed. Housing starts in September were 20% above a year ago, and builders forecast a last-quarter record of 294,000 houses.

EUROPEAN STEEL demand has pushed ahead of supply. Orders for finished steel products are coming in at the rate of 3,200,000 tons a month, while West Europe's capacity is less than 2,800,000 tons. Chief reason: greater use of steel for ordinary household products.

WEST COAST AUTO BUYERS will soon pay up to $160 less a car under a new pricing and delivery system put into effect by General Motors, Ford and Chrysler. To cut the price spread between Detroit and the West Coast, the companies will tack higher transportation costs on cars sold within 1,200 miles of Detroit, use the additional revenue to lower freight to more distant markets.

DEFENSE SPEEDUP, which has brought $1.2 billion in Air Force contracts to planemakers in three months, has spread to the Navy's air arm, which spent $700 million for new equipment in October alone. Biggest contracts: $194 million to United Aircraft Corp. for jet engines, propellers and helicopters; $165 million to Grumman Aircraft, mostly for its new supersonic F9F9 "Coke Bottle" jet fighter (TIME, Aug. 16).

FEDERAL HIGHWAY PROGRAM to spend $101 billion over the next ten years may be financed without levying new taxes. Financing experts have just completed a study showing that motor-vehicle mileage is increasing so fast that revenues from current taxes (gasoline, cars, equipment) will go up $350 million a year, enough to pay the interest and amortization on $5 billion worth of highway bonds each year.

JET TRANSPORTS will cost the airlines $1 billion over the next ten years in the changeover from piston-powered planes, predicts Civil Aeronautics Board Member Oswald Ryan. The outlay for jets will equal all airlines' current capital investment.

TANKER TRADE-IN program of the Maritime Administration (TIME, Oct. 11) is beginning to work. Esso, which operates a fleet of 50 tankers, will trade in five World War II ships for $5,000,000, which it will then apply toward two new tankers worth $22 million. Cities Service and Texas Co. are also dickering with the Government to trade in at least seven other outmoded tankers.

MACHINE-TOOL business is picking up after a poor year. New orders for September jumped to $53 million, a solid 45% above the low in July.

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