Lower Austria – the province of entrepreneurs

Internationality, innovation, digitisation and sustainability are the four key points in the economic strategy for this location.

“It is a matter of taking small and medium-sized enterprises into a new phase of innovation.”

Lower Austria is one of the most economically efficient regions in Europe and is recognised as an innovative as well as a strong export-orientated, high-tech location with excellent research infrastructure. Austria’s largest province excels due to its geographic location as well as its interconnectedness with Vienna. Lower Austria’s strong industrial tradition, particularly in the steel and metal processing industry and the chemical industry together with the flexibility of its entrepreneurs has enabled the region to benefit markedly from the opening of Eastern Europe.

Lower Austria sees itself as a province for entrepreneurs according to the Economic Strategy Lower Austria 2020. Businesses in Lower Austria will find optimal framework conditions for their development and competitiveness. This includes the whole spectrum of relevant infrastructure from services right through to financial support.

Though what is really being done for Lower Austrian businesses? We asked Lower Austrian Minister for Business, Tourism, Technology and Sports Jochen Danninger and Ecoplus Director Helmut Miernicki how the province is tackling the current challenges and how it will tackle future questions for the region.

Without a doubt the past spring was very challenging. What did the Province of Lower Austria focus on in particular in order to strengthen its business location? Since the start of the Covid crisis we have implemented a large number of measures to help support businesses on their path through these challenging times. Two sets of measures were established together with social partners including the first package among provinces with us assuming liabilities for small and medium-sized enterprises, initiatives to strengthen the regional online trading, measures for sports, a 22 million euros tourism package, the authorisation of a further 100 million euros for the broadband

Wieselburg is home to Lower Austria‘s latest technopole, an international centre for bio-energy, foodstuff and agricultural technology.

Lower Austrian technopoles

Technopoles are centres where research, education and business synergies are created in one location. They are located around education and research facilities and utilise this favourable location as well as the technological and scientific know-how.

c Krems – an international centre for health technology. Two local locations: Campus Krems and TFZ – Technology and

Research Centre Krems

c Tulln – centre for bio-based technologies. Key areas: food and feed safety, bio-based process technologies and agrobiotechnology

c Wieselburg – an international centre for bio-energy systems and food and agricultural technology

c Wiener Neustadt – medical and materials technology: focus on materials, medical technology, surfaces, tribology (friction, abrasion, lubrication) and sensors/actuators

Job market and economic structure

c Total number of jobs c Apprentices 629,613 16,811

c Jobseekers (annual average)2

50,745 c Unemployment rate2 7.5% c Members at the Economic Chamber 135,357 c Business formations3 8,042 c Gross value added in mln euros (2018) 54,526 c Gross regional product in mln euros (2018) 61,020 c Share in the Austrian GDP (2018) 15.8% c Gross regional product per capita in euros (2018) 36,500 c Foreign trade in mln euros (Q1+Q2) c Imports 13,797 c Exports 11,641 c Tourism overnight stays (x 1,000) 7,678 c Patent issuances nationally (2018) 157

expansion in Lower Austria as well as presenting a digitisation package to the tune of 10 milion euros.

Can you go into more detail please? To be more specific, we have been able to help 206 Lower Austrian business owners tackle the Covid crisis during April and May with liabilities and deferred payments amounting to around 30 million euros as part of the NÖ Bürgschaften und Beteiligungen GmbH NÖBEG. Our website “Niederösterreich wird nah versorgt“ was a big success. The website lists all the offers and services from regional online traders. When it started it had around 70 providers listed, now there are more than 1,400 providers listed. A further development, with which we have hit a nerve, is meinschaufenster.at, an app alternative for all stationary businesses that do not have their own online presence. It became possible for these traders to carry out virtual sales talks with their customers via WhatsApp. Over 300 businesses throughout Lower Austria are registered with this service. In addition, further stimulatory measures are being developed in time for autumn.

And looking at this in the long term, what will be the focus?

With regards to the long-term planning, we have the Business Strategy 2025 since last year. This sets out our guidelines, which should help to push forward with our competitiveness and expand. And despite the current crisis, we are continuing to bring these to life. The title of our business strategy is “Lower Austria, Province of Entrepreneurs. Quality with Future.” It is also our guiding principle, as it really explains our core strategy in a nutshell. It is a matter of taking small and medium-sized enterprises into a new phase of innovation. In order to achieve the following, four key aspects have been defined: Internationality, innovation, digitisation and sustainability. This means the central topics for our future have been placed in the focus of our work.

How does digitalisation in Lower Austria look in practical terms? What can companies expect in this area? During the pandemic it has been proven that digital tools are indispensable – from home-office solutions through to online retailing. But digitalisation in the economic sector is of course much more than online retailing. During the crisis, it has paid off that we in Lower Austria recognised the enormous future dimensions of digitalisation very early on and had started relevant activities to raise its awareness. At the centre of our measures is the House of Digitalisation, which is being implemented in three phases. In the first phase, digital hubs were created in order to link the existing know-how. Phase two started at the beginning of 2019 with the virtual House of Digitalisation, an interactive platform aimed at small and medium-sized enterprises that are interested in digital technologies. Around 500 companies are already using the virtual House of Digitalisation. By constructing a physical House of Digitalisation in Tulln, which is due to be completed in 2022, the existing digitalisation network will gain additional presence. The House of Digitalisation will become the central point of reference in Lower Austria. It will connect the real world with the digital world and will make digitalisation come alive for everyone. Successful business as well as trailblazing international research would be unthinkable without digitalisation.

Photo: ecoplus “Many companies appreciate the great location in the centre of Europe, near to eastern European growth markets as well as the metropolitan areas of Vienna and Bratislava” Helmut Miernicki, Managing Director of Ecoplus

Due to the Covid pandemic, digitalisation has gained further in importance. And it will continue to gain importance in future. Therefore, we are supporting small and medium-sized enterprises, entrepreneurs as well as start-ups more intensively in entering the digital world with a ten million euros stimulus package. The digitisation package titled “Digi4KMU” includes three specific measures. The first one is that companies can request a digital assistant to help identify starting points in their digitisation process. We support these with up to 60 hours of business consultations and 3,300 euros. We also support companies in creating digital concepts, by subsidising 50 percent of the costs up to 25,000 euros. And thirdly, we support digital investments, in other words the concrete realisation and implementation of digitalisation measures in companies. So, in total each company can receive support of up to 53,300 euros. With the Digi4KMU programme we aim to strengthen the companies’ competitiveness, their added value and to secure jobs.

In addition to digitisation, other future topics such as climate targets, climate protection and research and development are also highly important. What is the province doing in this regard? Research and development as well as digitisation are topics that also play a role in sustainability. We are convinced that economic growth and sustainability do not rule each other out – quite the opposite. Climate change is a challenge for us all, but at the same time it is an opportunity that is being used by many companies – think of e-mobility and green technologies. Ecoplus itself can offer a few examples: Many of our business parks are intercommunal business parks. That means that numerous municipalities cooperate with each other and as a result a profes-

sionally managed, attractive industrial estate is created. This brings added value and jobs to the region, and people do not need to commute to other areas. This is also active climate protection. The infrastructure is put in place once and as a result less area is taken up, destination and origin traffic are concentrated in one place. And as we place great importance on transport connections, we try to remain away from residential areas wherever we can.

Infrastructure measures nowadays often automatically leave a bad aftertaste, but building charging points for electric vehicles, which we are doing at our business parks, is also an infrastructure measure. At our business parks in Wolkersdorf and Kottingbrunn we offer a shuttle service to the public transport system. We offer companies individual rental objects that are tailored to the needs of the business and are energy-efficient. We also adapt existing objects according to climate protection criteria, which leads to their subsequent use. The restoration measures for our rental objects also abide by climate protection criteria.

In addition to the reasons already mentioned, why should companies come and settle in Lower Austria?

Many companies appreciate the great location in the centre of Europe, near to eastern European growth markets as well as the metropolitan areas of Vienna and Bratislava. But compared to those

Lower Austria – sustainable economic development

The Lower Austrian business agency Ecoplus is a reliable partner for companies, investors and initiators of regional and international projects. It operates as an interface between businesses, politics and science. It offers tailored advice when it comes to available subsidies, possible business locations, business settlements and regional funding in Lower Austria. Ecoplus is also involved in the management of business parks and investments, implementing cross-border projects, developing clusters, technopoles and the House of Digitalisation.

ecoplus. Niederösterreichs Wirtschaftsagentur GmbH www.ecoplus.at

Photo: Gerald Lechner

Research at the Austrian Competence Centre for Tribology in Wiener Neustadt

two, Lower Austria offers more affordable premises. Some of the other advantages of our business location include good infrastructure, a wide range of educational facilities as well as a high quality of life. This is the feedback we as a business agency regularly receive from investors and these are assets for our location that make Lower Austria stand out from other economic areas.

As part of the Ecoplus investor service, we offer a wide range of services throughout Lower Austria when it comes to questions surrounding business location and development projects. The focus is on location scouting and grants. An additional asset with regards to other international business locations are the 18 Lower Austrian business parks, which Ecoplus either owns or has an operating stake in. The advantages include modern infrastructure and large business premises on the one hand as well as having a port of call for all location-related questions on the other hand. The continually growing demand over the last years has led to a rising utilisation of our business parks. As a result, we have begun to implement measures to use the available space in our business parks for relocations. At IZ NÖ-Süd, for example, we have built a car park exclusively for the businesses located there. These measures only work in the short term, of course. In order to steer the development in the long term, we started a new strategy in 2018, which will create additional development possibilities for our business parks. One of the points in this strategy is the promotion of intercommunal business parks. ◆