The Austrian wood industry recorded a turnover of 7.08 billion euros in 2014, and thus registered a decline over the previous year of -5.2%. The timber industry in Austria is generally a strong foreign trade-oriented industry. Austria primarily exports softwood lumber, laminated wood and wood materials. The export ratio in 2014 came at just under 68% and corresponded to a total of 4.78 billion euros. Here a slight decrease of -1.5% was recorded.<\/p>\n
Most of the Austrian wood product exports (74.4% or 3.56 billion euros) were directed to European Union countries and here specifically to Germany and Italy. The remaining 25.6% were distributed to the other European countries (non-EU members) in a share of 13.1%; developing countries with 2.8% and other countries (such as USA and Japan) with 9.7%.<\/p>\n
Given the dramatic developments in major export destinations, the decline in Austrian exports is nevertheless modest.\u00a0The timber industry managed to respond flexibly, with failures of important export markets being replaced by others.<\/p>\n
Positive trade balance<\/strong><\/p>\n Austria's imports of wood products also declined in 2014, but to a lesser extent than exports. That's why the trade balance shows a weak surplus (+2.3% compared to 2013) and is currently at 1.1 billion euros. Total imports of wood products reached 3.67 billion euros (-2.6%). Again, the European Union was the main trading partner for the Austrian timber industry, with an 87.2% proportion of goods coming from the EU. Moreover, the recent years downward trend seems to have stopped.<\/p>\n Austrian timber industry is almost exclusively family-run<\/strong><\/p>\n Austria's timber industry currently has 1,369 active companies, of which around 950 are sawmills. This diverse economic sector includes the sawmill industry, the construction sector, the furniture industry, the wood products industry and the skiing industry. The majority of the enterprises of the timber industry are small and medium operationally structured and are almost exclusively in private hands.<\/p>\n Number of employees continued to decline<\/strong><\/p>\n Last year, 26,216 people were employed in the timber industry (2013: 27,928), of which 779 apprentices.\u00a0The decline in the number of employees was due to the ongoing economic downturn, with three consecutive years of decreased production.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Austrian wood industry recorded a turnover of 7.08 billion euros in 2014, and thus registered a decline over the previous year of -5.2%. The timber industry in Austria is generally a strong foreign trade-oriented industry. Austria primarily exports softwood … Continue reading