Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Austria in July—the first to this Central European nation by an Indian PM in over 40 years—was an attempt to realise the full economic and technological potential between the two countries. India wants high technology Austrian companies to be part of India’s “stellar growth story” by leveraging high-quality and cost-effective manufacturing under the ‘Make in India’ programme for domestic and international markets.

Modi and Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer have recognised the economic potential to take the partnership of the two countries to a higher level, emphasising a “future-oriented bilateral sustainable economic and technology partnership” that can cover a wide range of new initiatives and joint projects. India exports electronic goods, apparels, textile, footwear, rubber, articles, vehicles and railway parts, electrical machinery and mechanical appliances to Austria and buys machinery, mechanical appliances, railway parts, iron and steel from Austria.

“The Indian steel industry was built on Austrian technology; it was a revolutionary steel making process. It was the first time that Austria exported its niche steel making process technology to India,” says Hans-Joerg Hoertnagl, Commercial Counsellor & Trade Commissioner at the Austrian embassy in New Delhi. Austria mostly has SMEs and the core business in exports is mostly done by the SMEs. “We are not a big investor country. We mostly work with Indian companies. Ten years back we had an export volume of 800 million euros, now it is 1.3 billion euros. Last year, we had a trade deficit so we imported more from India than we exported,” says Hoertnagl adding, “Every year we have new trade records. Last year we had 7% and this year in the first quarter it was +14% against the previous year.”

Austria is strong in sectors such as railways and its infrastructure, automobile, inverters for solar energy, solar panels and electric cables, airport communication system, fire fighting vehicles in airports for emergency, energy saving brick manufacturing for house building. India imports telescopes from Austria for its space sector. Austria is not so much into consumer good products, explains Hoertnagl.