Green Austria

GRAZ TOURISMUS
Schlossberg: Graz: city of
science and research, largest
connected Old Town in Europe
(UNESCO World Heritage Site)
Location: Styria
Styria wants to become a new hot spot for investors and companies. Therefore, the aim
is set at expanding strengths such as the interesting R&D landscape, the hunger for
innovation and the country’s cluster initiatives and at overcoming weaknesses, especially
in the field of infrastructure.
Over the last ten years, Styria has become
an innovational location with dynamics
of its own. On the European Innovation Scoreboard,
Styria ranked second in 2001, following
Vienna as the second busiest ground-breaking
region. This position is also due to a high density
of universities and colleges of higher education
as well as the significant percentage of
private R&D expenditure. This is especially
Business location Graz
Graz – a platform for South-east Europe
• Centre of the Austrian automobile cluster – Detroit in the Alps
•Seat of internationally leading companies – Magna-Steyr Fahrzeugtechnik,
Daimler-Chrysler, AVL, Roche Diagnostics, Siemens, STRABAG, Andritz AG etc.
• City of congresses and trade fairs with international flair
• European traffic junction
- Intersection point of the A 2/E 66 – Südautobahn highway (Vienna - Graz - Italy)
with the A 9/E 57 - Phyrnautobahn highway (Regensburg - Passau - Graz - Slovenia)
Railway junction point: Südbahn and Ostbahn railway
Koralmbahn railway/Westbahn railway(under construction)
• Cargo Center Graz – freight transportation terminal
• International Airport Graz with cargo terminal
worthy of mention considering that 99,6 per
cent of all companies in Styria are SMEs. Great
potential also lies in the innovational broadness:
at present, 10.000 companies can call themselves
businesses on the swell of innovation.
In order to strengthen the region’s status as
a modern business location, Styria is currently
systematically investing in the fields of research
and development. Notedly before 2010,
the R&D rate is supposed to be boosted to more
than 3 per cent, and in 2010 the rate is expected
to be 3,5 per cent. Nevertheless, Styria already
ranks among the top 25 (R&D expenditure
of more than 2,5 percent of the gross regional
product) in the European regions’ research ranking
today. Moreover, the country’s research
is also ideally integrated into a number of international
networks and the participation in
EU research programmes is twice as high as
the Austrian average. Reasons for this are an
4 LOCATIONAUSTRIA 02/2006