MIPIM 2019 (24.1 MB)

Investing in Austria
Austria still has some catching up to do. High
ancillary labour costs, the pension system,
rigid working hours and the shortage of
skilled workers are just some of the issues of
concern. The same applies to regulations and
bureaucracy. For example, it takes 21 days to
set up a company in this country before
all official procedures are completed.
In the WEF ranking, this means
only 103rd place. Small countries
such as Denmark and Estonia
show that things can go much
faster with three and a days
of administration procedures
each. Many indicators
of the financial system are
also below average, such
as a negative assessment
of market capitalisation or
the availability of risk capital.
The Alpine republic also
has some catching up to do
in terms of digitisation. In the
current Digital Economy and
Society Index (DESI) of the European
Commission, Austria ranks
tenth with a score of 0.57, just ahead
of Germany, but Austria ranks among the
top 5 in the field of e-government pioneers.
Nevertheless, the use of digital services and
access to IT technologies are in need of improvement
in this digital age. Furthermore,
access to broadband Internet is still below
the EU and OECD average. In addition, according
to the Organisation for Economic
Cooperation and Development (OECD), Austria
still has one of the highest tax and duty
ratios in the world with 41.8 percent, whereas
the OECD average is 34.2 percent. However,
as part of the planned tax reform, the government
wants to reduce the tax rate to 40
percent and thus contribute to making
the location even more attractive.
It has already done so in another
area: firstly, with the new location
development regulation
(StEntG), which significantly
accelerates the approval procedure
for selected major
projects of economic significance.
On the other hand,
it has also taken the step
of entrusting the Chamber
of Commerce with the management
function. This is
intended to solve investment
blockades in projects that are
in the special public interest, to
structure the procedures better
and thereby significantly streamline
and simplify them. At the same
time, abusive delays in proceedings are
effectively eliminated - all with the aim
of creating a well-functioning infrastructure
and further increasing the competitiveness
of the business location because the competition
never sleeps.
n
Austrian Economic Forecast
(Real change in %) 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020
GDP 0.0 0.7 1.1 2.0 2.6 2.7 1.6 1.5
Private consumption 0.8 1.1 2.4 2.5 4.2 3.8 3.0 2.0
Public consumption -0.1 0.3 0.4 1.4 1.4 1.6 1.4 1.3
Gross fixed capital formation 1.6 -0.4 2.3 4.3 3.9 3.4 2.1 1.6
Exports 0.6 2.9 3.5 2.7 4.7 4.2 2.7 2.3
Imports 0.7 3.0 3.6 3.4 5.1 2.5 2.3 2.3
CPI (change in %) 2.0 1.7 0.9 0.9 2.1 2.0 1.8 1.9
Unemployment rate (in %, nat. def.) 7.6 8.4 9.1 9.1 8.5 7.7 7.4 7.4
Unemployment rate (in %, Eurostat def.) 5.3 5.6 5.7 6.0 5.5 4.9 4.7 4.7
Current account balance (in % of GDP) 1.9 2.5 1.7 2.5 2.0 2.4 2.5 2.4
General Government balance (in % of GDP) -2.0 -2.7 -1.0 -1.6 -0.8 -0.3 0.1 0.2
Public debt (in % of GDP) 81.3 84.0 84.8 83.0 78.3 74.8 72.2 69.7
Source: Bank Austria Economics & Market Analysis Austria - Source: Statistik Austria, WIFO, Thomson Reuters Datastream, EU Commission,
UniCredit Research
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