Press release: 12.393-233/20

Foreign trade in September 2020: imports declined by 3.3%, exports stagnated at +0.1%

Vienna, 2020-12-09 – The value of imports of goods was at €12.67 bn in September 2020, a decrease of 3.3% compared to September 2019, as Statistics Austria reports. At the same time, exports of goods increased by 0.1% to €12.92 bn; Switzerland, Germany and the United States were affected likewise. The balance of trade thus showed a surplus of €0.25 bn. Working-day adjusted, imports decreased by 7.3%, exports by 4.4%.

The significant decline due to Corona crisis in March (import: -7.9%, export: -4.3%), April (import: -25.9%, export: -23.7%) and May (import: -24.8%, export: -25.4%) was mainly responsible for the negative development of foreign trade in the current reporting year. In the period January to September 2020, total imports amounted to €105.67 bn and total exports added up to €104.60 bn. Compared to the corresponding period of the previous year, Austrian imports decreased by 11.2% and Austrian exports declined by 9.0%. A general flattening of exports as well as imports was already observed in January and February 2020, before the Corona shutdown in Austria came into effect in mid-March 2020. The global ITGS balance (Austrian International Trade in Goods Statistics balance) showed a deficit of €1.07 bn.

For more detailed information please refer to the German version. Visualisations of the foreign trade data for 2019 are available in the ITGS-Atlas, the interactive tree maps on imports as well as exports and a bar diagram.