Austria’s plastics industry, as indeed much of the Alpine republic itself, lives in the shadow of its far bigger neighbour, Germany. Despite the geographic proximity of the two countries and the fact that Germany absorbs 30% of Austria’s polymer output and Austria's production volume is smaller, the country does not need to “hide its light under a bushel,” as regards the quality of its plastics offerings. As a whole, the sector – including machinery manufacturers and service providers – generated revenues of EUR 14.6 bn in 2006. The plastics processing sector in a wider sense accounted for sales of EUR 7 bn and enjoyed double-digit growth again in 2007 after an upturn of 14.4% in 2006.

Reflecting the comparatively small domestic market, the Austrian plastics industry has a strong export focus. Around 70% of plastics industry output is sold outside the country’s borders. Converters alone have an average export ratio of 33%. Germany is the largest customer, accounting for EUR 836m of the 2006 export volume worth EUR 2.7 bn. The next largest export markets are France and Switzerland, which each imported plastics from Austria worth EUR 187m.

The Association of the Austrian Chemical Industry (FCIO, Vienna / Austria; www.fcio.at) expects 2008 to be a difficult year, its president Peter Untersperger said in a report to the press. Initial forecasts, he said, pointed to a noticeable slowdown in growth, even as regards exports, accompanied by a perceptible decline in new orders. FCIO counts EUR 13 bn in annual sales for the country’s chemical industry in 2007, a rise of 4.4% compared with 2006. Finished and semi-finished plastics goods accounted for 27% of the total and plastics resins for nearly 14%.

Upper Austria's Kunststoff-Cluster (KC, Linz / Austria; www.kunststoff-cluster.at), a well-functioning industry network, estimates that sales by the Austrian plastics industry were EUR 14.6 bn in 2006 (EUR 13 bn in 2005). This figure takes account of service providers and machinery manufacturers, which are not included in the FCIO's statistics. The industry has 600 to 800 companies with a total of 65,000 employees, including 35,000 in the processing sector. The calculation encompasses about 220 – larger – companies with around 22,500 employees. Most processors are small to mid-sized enterprises. Some 65% have less than 20 employees and only about 4% have a headcount of over 250. The industry is mainly concentrated in the states of Upper and Lower Austria – these two regions account for half of the industry’s employees and most of its output by value.

Special attention should be paid to Upper Austria, partly because KC in this region numbers 400 members, some of them actually based in Germany. Moreover, the Linz region is emerging as a future scientific centre for plastics. Three new polymer institutes are being established by Johannes Kepler University (Linz / Austria; www.jku.at), and polyolefins giant Borealis (Vienna / Austria; www.borealisgroup.com) is currently expanding its centre of competence for "Technical Applications” and “Films and Fibres” .

According to the European statistics office Eurostat (http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu), Austrian manufacturers of plastics machinery exported products worth nearly EUR 1.04 bn worldwide in 2007 (EUR 940m in 2006). Machinery exports to the EU came to around EUR 558m (EUR 492m) in 2007, so that EU member states accounted for about half of Austrian exports by value. Injection moulding machines made up nearly 57% of exports to EU countries, with extruders (12%) ranking second. At the same time, Austrian companies imported machinery worth EUR 312m, including EUR 235m from European producers. Germany headed the list, supplying machinery worth EUR 156m, followed at some distance by the Czech Republic (EUR 30m) and Italy (nearly EUR 22m).

Austria: Exports of Plastic Goods
2006, by customer country (total: EUR 2.7 bn)
Country	EUR	%
Germany	836	31.0
France	187	6.9
Switzerland	187	6.9
Italy	161	6.0
Czech Republic	116	4.2
USA	71	2.6
China	38	1.4

Source: Austrian Office of Foreign Trade