country of the month - january
EUROCONSTRUCT AUSTRIA
Dr. Margarete Czerny
WIFO - Austrian Institute of Economic Research
Gerneral Information
Dr. Margarete Czerny is the head of department for the construction industry, housing
policy and East-West co-operation at the Austrian Institute of Economic Research.
She is a member of EUROCONSTRUCT construction business research and forecasting network since 1978.
Construction trends in Austria
The Austrian construction market performs in comparison to the 19 EUROCONSTRUCT
countries relatively good. One reason for the good economic development is an increase in public investment
in civil engineering. This kind of investment can be seen as stabilizing measures of the public sector.
In the long run these investments are set boundaries because of the public budget consolidation measures.
Therefore new models of financing infrastructure are heavily discussed.
One of the government proposals is to promote public private partnership models
for infrastructure projects. In the optimal case infrastructure investment can be
implemented at lower costs, more quickly and with reduced operating costs by
using PPPs. The European Investment Bank states that experiences in the United Kingdom,
the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal and Greece show that potential savings in the order
of 10-20 per cent can be achieved.
The Austrian Institute of Economic Research is carrying out a study on Public Private
Partnerships with the aim to find the potential for PPP in Austria. The study will
be available by the End of 2004.
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