“We are in the third year of the recession. We now urgently need to take countermeasures.” The President of the Austrian Industrial Association (IV), Georg Knill, and General Secretary Christoph Neumayr called for reforms at a press conference in Vienna on Thursday and justified this with urgent problems in the domestic industry: The value added in the manufacturing sector was 4.5 percent last year decreased and unemployment increased by 17.8 percent year-on-year.
Knill emphasized that the global economy is expected to grow by three percent this year and that there are dynamic growth rates in some countries. But that doesn’t apply to Austria. Competitiveness is decreasing, which is due to excessive labor, energy and bureaucracy costs: “We have priced ourselves out of the market and can hardly participate in world growth anymore.”
It is the task of the next federal government to take countermeasures. Above all, there is a need for a reduction in unit labor costs, energy costs and a reduction in bureaucracy and over-regulation. As reported, the economic researchers from IHS and Wifo are assuming gentle economic growth of 0.5 percent for Austria this year. According to IV, whether this occurs depends on the one hand on developments in the USA, where President-elect Donald Trump has announced new tariffs, and on the other hand on the necessary consolidation of the federal budget: “This must only be done on the expenditure side. The tender little growth must not be strangled become.” What is needed is a targeted reduction in spending on subsidies and an increase in efficiency.
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Image: Apa/Manhart
Source: Nachrichten
