Foreign trade really got going in 2021
The strong upswing that began in the previous year was not only driven by domestic consumption, but also by exports. Statistics Austria recently reported that all federal states were able to grow by an average of 16.1% in 2021 compared to the Corona year 2020.
Although the increase in exports in Salzburg was below average with growth of 13.7% and in Tyrol of 12.5%, these two federal states only recorded small declines compared to the other federal states in the wake of the pandemic. The increase of 13.7% is all the stronger, which at least results in an increase from €1.42 billion to €11.8 billion in exports. The relatively largest increase was recorded in Vorarlberg with 20.5%, increases in Lower Austria (18.5%) and Carinthia (18.4%). Austria’s federal states consistently export high-quality goods such as machines, chemical products and metal goods.
In 2021, goods worth €165.48 billion were exported from Austria. More than a quarter of this was in Upper Austria. Styria has a 15.6% share of total exports, followed by Lower Austria (14.9%) and Vienna (13.7%). Salzburg achieved a share of 7.1%.
Most important trading partner: Germany
Of course, imports were strong again in the previous year: Austria’s federal states recorded an import increase of 23.2% for 2021. Lower Austria (+28.1%), Burgenland (+27.4%) and Vienna (+26.3%) showed the stronger relative increases. Salzburg imported 15.7% more (€14.1 billion), with more than 43% of all imports to Salzburg coming from neighboring Germany. Incidentally, in 2021 Germany was by far the trading partner for all Austrian federal states in terms of imports and exports. Salzburg’s top 3 trading partners in 2021 were Germany, followed by China and Italy.
China in the top 3
By the way: With the exception of Tyrol, China ranks among the top 3 trading partner countries in all federal states. mainly in all federal states, exports to EU member states dominate.
For this year and next year, however, the strong momentum is likely to weaken. WIFO expects exports to increase by just over 8% in 2022 and by 3.2% in 2023.