Distance and Ownership Modes of Austrian Firms in CEE

Since both, the fall of the iron curtain in 1989 and the EU expansion in 2004 the Central and Eastern European region entered a substantial integration process. Austria's economy is highly integrated internationally and doing Business in Central and Eastern Europe is an integral part of Austrian companies' activities. Numerous statistical figures support this fact.
Exports into CEE countries in 2010 summed up to EUR 19.5 billion accounting for 17.8% of overall exports and up 13.0% compared to 2009 (Statistik Austria 2011a). Austria is also a major source of investment in CEE countries. By the end of 2009, Austrian enterprises held direct investments in foreign countries at a nominal value of almost EUR 113 billion, EUR 54 billion of which is invested in Central and Eastern Europe. The Czech Republic and Hungary come 4th and 8th, respectively, in Austria's top 10 trading partners according to intensity of trade in 2009 (Statistik Austria 2010). By the end of 2010 EUR 58.4 billion, accounting for more than 45% of Austria's overall foreign direct investments, were held in Central and Eastern Europe (Oesterreichische Nationalbank 2011). Subsidiaries of Austrian companies abroad were employing more than 90,000 people in Romania, Hun-gary and the Czech Republic, respectively, accounting for 31% of Austrian companies? worldwide figures. Therefore these countries ranked 2nd to 4th overall behind Austria's major trading partner Germany in 2009. Ranks 5 to 7 of the statistics on employees of subsidiaries of Austrian companies abroad are also held by CEE countries, namely Slovakia, Poland and Bulgaria (Statistik Austria 2011b).
All those numbers are a clear indicator for the importance of a market presence in Central and Eastern European countries for Austrian firms. As seen above, in CEE markets all ownership modes are of great importance for Austrian firms (Statistik Austria 2011a, Statistik Austria 2011b, Oesterreichische Nationalbank 2011).