The New Foreign Trade Strategy - "An Innovative Foreign Trade Policy for a Successful Austria"
The new foreign trade strategy (PDF, 714 KB) was adopted at the meeting of the Council of Ministers on 19 December 2018. The aim of the strategy, which comprises 63 policy measures, is to further consolidate the competitive strength of Austria's foreign trade in the international arena and to enhance the attractiveness of the country as a location for business.
The strategy focuses on innovation and technology, digitalisation and emerging markets. The measures are aimed at flagship enterprises and especially SMEs and start-ups.
Implementation
The individual measures have been implemented since 2019. Under the lead management of the BMAW, BMEIA and WKO, a roadmap for implementation was created and implementation success was regularly reviewed.
Addendum to the foreign trade strategy
Current geopolitical developments pose major challenges for Austria's foreign trade and require a further development of the foreign trade strategy. An addendum to the foreign trade strategy (PDF, 714 KB) was approved in June 2022 to strengthen the resilience of Austria's foreign trade and to consolidate the international leadership role of Austrian companies in the sustainability sector: The addendum contains a package of twenty new measures to strengthen crises resilience and the strategic foresight of Austria’s foreign economy.
Evaluation
A monitoring and evaluation process was initated simultaneously with the implementation of the measures. The evaluation report (PDF, 714 KB)contains two sub-studies: Sub-study 1 reflects the success of implementation based on qualitative surveys in institutions and companies. Sub-study 2 evaluates Austria's performance in relation to economic goals of the foreign trade strategy.