International Finance Institutions (IFIs) and their export potential for Austrian clusters

Submitted by Alina Danieles… on 05 December 2018

International Finance Institutions (IFIs) like the Worldbank, the International Monetary Fund, the Asian Development Bank or the African Development Bank are investing billions of US$ every year mainly in development and emerging countries in Asia, Africa and South America. The main topic of these investments concern traffic and building infrastructure, energy and environmental projects as well as health infrastructure in order to improve social and economic development.

The Austrian clusters have a strong focus on internationalisation and therefore, on December 4th, 2018, the working group “clusters & internationalisation” which is steered by the Austrian Chamber of Commerce organised a workshop with high level experts from the Austrian federal government and representatives of companies that are strongly involved in international projects financed by IFIs. The company representatives from STRABAG and iCConsulenten are implementing international projects mainly in the Western Balkans and Central Asia and informed on the “Do’s and Don’ts” when applying for IFI projects.

The discussion showed that the international investment plans and projects of IFIs should be carefully monitored by Austrian clusters and that focused qualification activities for cluster companies together with the Austrian Chamber of Commerce should be implemented in order to strengthen the competence of cluster companies in applying for IFI projects. Also building international networks is helpful for a successful application.

The National Austrian Cluster Platform was launched in 2008 by the Federal Ministry for Digital and Economic Affairs and is the information and cooperation platform for national and federal cluster stakeholders in Austria. The platform organizes six working groups that are addressing technological and innovation issues.

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