There was a strong revival in exports of around 16 percent to a volume of 165.5 billion euros. But imports went up even more, by 23 percent to almost 178 billion euros.
The escalating war in Eastern Europe is currently adding to this negative development. Russia and above all the Ukraine are among the smaller trading partners in terms of their share of the total volume of domestic foreign trade. The effects of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the Western economic sanctions will still have an impact in this country, since Austria is disproportionately dependent on these two countries for a few imported products – specifically natural gas and ores.
Domestic gas consumption is currently 80 percent covered by Russian natural gas. This dependency is also illustrated by the statistics: the lion’s share of all imports from Russia in 2021, at 86.6 percent, came from the fuels and energy product group. At the same time, 41.2 percent of all iron ore imports came from Ukraine in the past year. In general, 61.5 percent of all imports from the country were commodities. Ukraine thus provided 7.8 percent of the raw materials imported into Austria from all over the world.
Goods from Russia by almost five billion euros
Overall, imports from the Russian Federation reached a volume of almost 4.7 billion euros in 2021, accounting for 2.6 percent of all domestic imports. This put Russia in tenth place among the most important supplier countries. Only 0.6 percent of all Austrian imports came from the Ukraine, they reached around 1.1 billion euros.
When it comes to exports, Austria is primarily linked to Germany as a customer – a large part of the deliveries go to the neighboring country. In terms of the share of total exports, Russia plays a subordinate role with 1.2 percent (2 billion euros), as does Ukraine with 0.4 percent (0.6 billion euros).
The most important partner is Germany
“The most important export partners in 2021 were Germany with 30.1 percent, Italy with 6.8 percent and the United States with 6.7 percent; the Russian Federation was in 17th place with an export share of 1.2 percent,” summarized Statistics Austria Director General Tobias Thomas together. Austria mainly delivered machinery and vehicles (EUR 0.65 billion) and chemical products (EUR 0.64 billion) to Russia.
“Austria’s foreign trade is booming,” said the head of statistics, with a view to the strong revival of international trade activities in the past year. With the export increase of 16.1 percent compared to 2020, the volume also significantly exceeded the level before the pandemic: “Exports were thus 7.8 percent above the pre-crisis year 2019 – especially road vehicles, medical and pharmaceutical products as well as Metal goods contributed to the export,” emphasized Thomas.
Goods for almost 120 billion euros from the EU
According to the information, Austria imported goods worth 118.58 billion euros (up 20.1 percent) from the member states of the European Union in 2021. The value of the products exported to these countries increased by 16.9 percent compared to 2020 to 112.64 billion euros. The trade deficit with the EU more than doubled from 2.38 to 5.94 billion euros. Austria did almost 70% of its foreign trade with the EU – 66.6 percent was intra-EU imports and 68.1 percent intra-EU exports.
Foreign trade with third countries increased noticeably year-on-year – both in imports (up 30.1 percent to 59.39 billion euros) and in exports (up 14.4 percent to 52.83 billion euros). The balance in the exchange of goods with non-EU countries turned from a slight surplus of 0.52 billion euros to a minus of 6.56 billion euros compared to 2020. Over 30 percent of Austria’s foreign trade – 33.4 percent of extra-EU imports and 31.9 percent of extra-EU exports – was with third countries.
With an import share of 33.1 percent and an export share of 37 percent, machines and vehicles were again the most important product group in domestic foreign trade in 2021. The value of imports here increased by 16.7 percent to 58.89 billion euros, the volume of exports increased by 12.6 percent to 61.28 billion euros. Also important export products in terms of value were processed goods (up 22.8 percent to 35.29 billion euros), chemical products (up 13.6 percent to 25.19 billion euros) and other finished goods (up 10.6 percent to 17.72 billion euros). Euro). According to Statistics Austria, 84.3 percent of Austrian exports in 2021 were concentrated on these four product groups.
Fuel imports increased massively
The imports of fuels and energy also increased significantly by 68.2 percent to 13.89 billion euros.
In December 2021, the trend towards a larger foreign trade deficit intensified – imports soared by 32.6 percent compared to the same month in the previous year to a value of 15.39 billion euros, while exports were able to grow quite strongly by 20.3 Percent to 13.73 billion euros but not keep up.
Source: Nachrichten
