Austria: Vegetable export +31.3% and fruit +13.6%

Statistik Austria, the Austrian Central Bureau for Statistics, recently published figures about the foreign trade in 2011. This shows that there is a rising line in the foreign trade of agrarian products, Austrian foods have conquered a permanent place in shelves abroad and that Austrian foods are especially loved by their German neighbours. The figures are a prognosis based on the first three quarters of 2011.

The agrarian import and export in 2011 in Austria was very well balanced. Over 9 billion Euro's worth was export and 9.4 billion was imported. The value of the food export increased last year by 16.1%. In total 8.1 million tonnes of food passed the Austrian border, of which a third of the total exported amount went to Germany.

The export of vegetables increased by 31.1% and the export of fruit increased by 13.6%. Pre-prepared fruit and vegetables also made an important contribution to the export, with an export value of 225 million Euro. Their export value increased by 21.7% compared to 2010.

More and more Austrian fruit and vegetables are also being exported to the new EU countries. In 2011 80 million Euro's worth of fruit was exported to these countries and 72 million Euro's worth of vegetables. Besides this, 83 million Euro's worth of pre-prepared fruit and vegetables was exported to these countries.