As with other major manufacturing centres worldwide, Austria also registered a considerable downturn last year in trade in plastics and rubber processing machinery. Data released by the local statistics office show imports falling by 28.8% and exports by 32.5% with respect to 2008 levels.
However, at least regarding the main customs codes, noticeable increases were recorded in imports. For example, purchases of injection moulding machines (33% produced by Japanese manufacturers and representing 12% of total sales) and of blow moulding machines (70% from Switzerland, 8% of total sales) increased by 43% and 26% respectively.
The following results were recorded, on the other hand, for exports:  injection moulding machines -37.6%, extruders -32.9%, and blow moulding machines -26.3%. Details of the destination markets are available only for the last item (due to the limited number of Austrian manufacturers of the other two, the local statistics office releases data on an aggregate basis only) and show that almost one third of the total was exported to Germany and 21% was supplied to Italian processors.