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KARNTEN
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GEOGRAPHY AND DEMOGRAPHY
Kärnten (Carinthia) has an area of 9 536 km², two important cities - Klagenfurt, the capital and Villach -8 political districts and 132 municipalities. It has international borders with Slovenia and Italy and is also bounded by the Bundesländer of Tirol, Salzburg and Steiermark. It ha a population of 559.404 inhabitants and a density of 59 persons per square km.
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INFRASTRUCTURES
Despite having a mountainous territory, the Region has a good transport service (motorways, roads, railroads).
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ECONOMY
With its scenic beauty and variety of landscapes, Kärnten is a major tourist area. Its numerous,-mainly warm-water lakes and warm summer climate make for relaxing holidays. The Alps, with their varied terrain ranging from easily-climbed grass slopes to glaciated high mountains, are magnificent and readily accessible, and Kärnten has a well-developed infrastructure. Some areas also lend themselves to the winter tourist trade, and tourism has thus become a major income-earner for the local population.
Timber is a further important industry in an area where more than 50% of the land is wooded. There is some wood processing in Kärnten, but a substantial percentage of the timber felled is exported as a raw material, principally to Italy.
The economic hub is the centre, around the cities of Klagenfurt and Villach, where 48% of the population live on 21.3 % of the land area. Most industrial concerns are on a small scale. There are several power stations on the Drau (Drava) river supplying electricity, and there is arable land in the Klagenfurt basin. The vast majority of the economically-active population work in the services sector. Many commuters from the rest of Kärnten work in the centre.
Apart from tourism and timber, there is little industry and all lead and zinc mining recently came to an end as it was no longer profitable.
Kärnten has an average of 59 inhabitants per km² and GDP per capita running at 96% of the EU average (PPP approach).
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LABOUR MARKET
In 2000, 67% of the population was of working age. 74% of the men in this age bracket were economically active and 57% of the women.
In 2000 the share of people employed in agriculture in Kärnten was 6.2%. The figure for the industrial sector stood at 27.5% and 66.7% in the services sector. The hotel and catering sector is very well developed with 13.3% of the total workforce in the tertiary sector.
The agriculture and forestry sector shed 900 jobs between 1995 and 2000. Over the same period the non-agricultural sectors expanded by 10 500 jobs (from 210 500 to 221 000). From 1995 to 2000, the employment in industry decreased by 4.2%. In 2000, the main activity in the secondary sector was manufacturing with 62.3% of the share of employment. The steady increase in the services sector has meant that the number of people working in Kärnten has risen by 9.2% since 1995.
In 2001, the census showed that 16,9% of economically active people (by place of residence) had no more than an ISCED 2-degree (lower secondary level of education), that is under the national average. 6,9 % of the economically active people had a degree of ISCED 5A (first stage of tertiary education, level 5A) and 6 (second stage of tertiary education), that is also under the Austrian average of 7.8%.
The average annual unemployment rate was 4.3% in 2001. The rate was 3.1% for men in 2001 and 5.9% for women.
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DATA RELATED TO REGIONAL STRUCTURAL FUNDS MECHANISMS
EU Objective 2, for the period 2000-2006.
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RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
The total amount of Government investments (% of GDP) in R&D is 3.3%. The total amount of public investments is 0.06% of GDP, private investments are 1.5%.
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DATA RELATED TO REGIONAL PROGRAMME OF INNOVATIVE ACTIONS
The region of Carinthia implemented its RPIA during the period 2003-2004 with a total budget of Euro 6 million (EU - Euro 3 million, public - Euro 2.02 million and Euro 0.98 million - private). The programme focused on regional economies based on knowledge and technological innovation, the information society and regional identity and sustainable development.
The objective of the programme was to support Carinthia's New Economy and prevent a further increase in the differences between different areas within Carinthia, thereby increasing the overall competitiveness of the region. The focus of the innovative actions was, therefore, to further develop and enhance capabilities and activities in the areas of innovation, research and development as well as the deployment of new information and communication technologies for the benefit of regional development.
The RPIA concentrated on the following actions:
- Raise the quality of the location through education actions in decision and knowledge management.
The objective was to build awareness among the informed public and decision makers in the region through educational initiatives so that questions can be answered permanently and inter-disciplinarily and these decision makers can adequately support the increasing demands in the enterprises in which they work.
- Strengthen the network of science and industry.
The objective of this action was to accelerate the transfer and deployment of the latest findings and technologies, to raise innovation and R&D activities in Carinthian enterprises, to find an organisational model for Carinthia's R&D institutions, and improve Carinthia's R&D landscape in order to compensate for the strategic weaknesses of the enterprises in R&D activities as well as for the lack of a critical mass of companies.
- Economic control system for the development of innovative incentive instruments.
The objective was to introduce an innovative approach to economic promotion that raises customer orientation and improves the action / reaction potential, thereby contributing to more targeted use of resources.
- EU-East preparation for traditional, old-economy enterprises (esp. SMEs).
The objective was to prepare enterprises in traditionally strong sectors within the Carinthian economy for the EU eastern expansion, so that they are more open to co-operate, transfer know-how and take advantage of synergies. The language skills within the Slovenian population of Carinthia constituted an important advantage in this regard.
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