Johann Kausl, Austrian Trade Councillor, commented for Russia Today on the development of Russo-Austrian economic ties.
Johann Kausl: We have about 1000 Austrian companies having regular business with Russian partners and about 500 Austrian companies, per Russian statistics, who have some form of representative office, subsidiary or even production facility in Russia. I would say from 50 to 70 Austrian production facilities are already running in Russia and it is becoming more of them. Russia Today: Which economic sectors have the strongest links between Russia and Austria? J.K.: About 80% of our imports are from Russia. It is significant, we import more from Russia than we sell to Russia. Most of these, 80% is gas and oil. If we look at the Austrian exports to Russia, among the leading areas here are machinery and equipment. What makes about 40% of our supplies to Russia is machinery. After that there are some raw materials and semi-finished products. To give an example: we buy steel from Russia and we sell high-end steel products for the car industry, for instance. Less than 10% of our supplies is consumer goods. But consumer goods from Austria, by the way, are very famous here. If you take famous companies like Red Bull which is also Austrian but nobody knows that. So, there's quite a number of consumer products on the market.