Advantage Austria

On June 3rd Ms. Andrea Robitza, who came from Austria, visited our class.

She is representing "Advantage Austria", which is the trading-part of the Austrian embassy in Korea. Advantage Austria with its more than 110 offices in over 70 countries, provides a broad range of intelligence and business development services for both Austrian companies and their international business partners. Their 800 employees around the world can assist people in locating Austrian suppliers and business partners.

First, Andrea showed us a video about Austria. The video had contained this information, including representative of Austrian Alps, Mozart, Vienna State Opera, Stephan Cathedral etc. And she explained to economy about Austria. She said that Austria is the 7th exporting country and strength of business sector is environmental technology. She showed us a chart of exports. It occupied the most part was a machine (25.7%), and motor vehicles (8.8%).

Then she talked about the most important trade partners with Austria. As expected, top export market is Germany. And Italy, USA, Switzerland, France are located in the chart. In particular, China is the only in Asia export market.

We think that, Austria's proximity to Central and Eastern European states is a key factor in the increasing significance of trade and the economic networking with these countries.

Next, Andrea mentioned about Austrian exports to Korea. Korea and Austria began to trade since 1995. So what do they export to Korea? Mostly machinery, also wine, beer and energy drink like food and beverage and so on. Then, what do they import from Korea? Smart phone from Samsung (84.5%). It was overwhelming. Also in tourism, Korea increased the percentage of tourists who visit Austria (28.6%). Furthermore she introduced Vienna Coffee. The Vienna Pop-up Cafe event was held at the front of Donga Ilbo Media Center offering the most famous Viennese coffee.

Through her presentation, we could learn about Austria's economy, culture, tourist attraction etc. After her speech, we had the time needed for a simple quiz about Austria. Andrea gave gifts (Redbull, jam) to the students with the correct answer. After that, we asked her many questions and she answered with kindness. Andrea's speech was absolutely interesting. It was a valuable time to us. We would like to thank Andrea Robitza for her useful presentation.