Austria's "Technology Gap" in Foreign Trade

Compared with other industrialized countries, Austria exhibits a substantial "technology gap" in foreign trade that is revealed in a low share of high-technology products in manufacturing exports and in low unit values. The resulting deficit in foreign trade with high-technology products totaled almost ATS 22 billion in 1994. A positive structural change has been taking place, however, over the last two decades. In order to accelerate this shift toward technologically more sophisticated products, the ratio of research expenditures to GDP will need to be raised from the current 1.5 percent to the EU average of 2 percent. The additional funds required to achieve this goal over the period of six years total some ATS 40 billion.