Joining the European Union has been extremely beneficial to Austria.
From 1995 to 1999 40% of the Austrian population profited from the European structural funds, to an amount of 1.64 billion euros.
The coming to power of Jörg Haider's extreme right wing party in a coalition with the conservatives put Austria in an awkward position with the European community but there has been no real outcome on the economy, apart from a short term drop in tourism.

Main Economic Indicators

economic growth (%)	2.5	3.3	2.2	2.9
consumption variation (%)	0.7	1.7	2.0	2.5
investment variation (%)	2.8	4.7	3.5	3.9
inflation (%)	2.0	0.9	0.7	1.2
public balance/GDP (%)	-1.9	-2.2	-2.1	-2.5
unemployment (%)	6.4	6.5	6.3	3.4
short term interest rate (%)	3.5	3.6	2.9	3.3
public debt (billions $)	64.3	63.3	63.3	63.2
exports variation	10.1	7.9	2.9	6.2
imports variation	8.7	6.6	3.0	5.7
balance of trade (billions $)	-4.3	-3.7	-5.8	-7.1

Germany remains the principal partner, half of German foreign investment goes to Austria.
Austria also profits from its geographical proximity to the developing eastern European countries (15% of its exports go there, compared to an average of 10% for other European Union countries), and has 14,000 companies installed in the Central European and Eastern countries (CEEC).
Only about 10% of Austrian exports go to Asia or North America.

The economic situation is satisfactory : inflation is nearly non-existent, the unemployment rate is very low, at 3.4% it is among the three best in Europe, there is a high level of foreign investment and a real rate of growth of the GDP of 3.5% (2.8% in 2001).
The government has started reforms to reduce the budgetary public deficit to 1.3% of the GDP by 2003.
It is also encouraging privatizations.

Household consumption has grown with the improved purchasing power generated by the increase in employment, the reductions in the income tax and the increments in family allowances.

The deteriorating balance of trade and the growth in the public deficit are the counterparts to the economic growth.

The social measures taken by the government are causing perturbances : company social charges have been reduced while individual health and welfare contributions have been increased, an austerity measure is planned which will gradually make 20,000 posts redundant in the public sector, high registration fees have been introduced for universities which have been free up till now, 10 billion schillings have been budgeted for research and structural changes up until 2003 and lastly, the retirement age has been raised by a year and a half.

Due to international pressure, Austria is finally changing its regulations concerning anonymous savings accounts (there are 24 million accounts for 8 million Austrians).
It is said that these accounts are used to recycle dirty money.
From 1st November 2000, it has no longer been possible to open one of these accounts and after June 2002 identities will be checked for any deposits or withdrawals.

The division of the GDP by activity sector :
agriculture : 1.4%
industry, mining : 22.9%
building : 7.5%
services : 68.2%
- of which: commerce, tourism : 16.9%
banks, insurances : 21%
transport, telecommunications : 6.2%
others 24.1%

(sources MOCI, Le Monde, le nouvel Observateur)