The Economic Chamber of Carinthia represents and supports the interests of more than 33.557 member companies. It acts independent for fair and free competition within Carinthia, provides many services and support their members in their day-to-day business operations. It is committed to forward-looking policies that benefits the economy, e.g. tax relief, cutting red tape, subsidies.
The organisation is obligated to support its members’ interests, sets the agenda for it and is a leading force in policy-making at the level of the Carinthian industry and region as well as on national and EU level. Furthermore the chamber is represented by policy departments for education, finance and commerce, legal, welfare and healthcare, environment and energy, European policy coordination and economic policy.
The Carinthian chamber is a modern service provider and offers its members fast expert advice on topics from labour laws to custom information in the different industry sectors. The Foreign Trade Department, Junior Chamber/Start-Up service, Women in Business and 8 regional divisions are centralised expert services to support more focused.
With educational facilities like “WIFI Kärnten” (Wirtschaftsförderungsinstitut), which offers over 3.000 trainings and seminars, the universities of applied sciences and the co-working and innovation area “Makerspace Carinthia” the chamber contributes to improve the competitive ability of companies in terms of technology and innovation.
The Foreign Trade Department consults its members to export and import requests, issues export-documents as a transferred field of action of the federal ministry of Austria, advises to new markets, legal regulations, EU topics and funding. Worldwide Company Missions and fairs in foreign countries, as well as international brokerage events also support companies with entering new foreign markets. International networking, advisory services covering patent and design protection, apprenticeship, migration/ integration, innovation and technology are the key tasks in form of projects and events.
Targets and Tasks. The Carinthian Chamber takes measures towards steady and sustainable economic growth. It aims the protection of private property in order to guarantee entrepreneurial freedom, the regulation of competition, a balanced business structure between SMEs and large enterprises, enforce and support flexible labour models, a fair working environment, as well as high levels of education and trainings. Furthermore driving forward research and development of innovation, new information and communication technology is targeted.
The social market economy determines the actions and companies in free markets create prosperity. This requires an effective regulatory framework which not only guarantees fair competition, but also a harmonious balance between large corporations and small and medium enterprises.
This is why the Carinthian Economic Chamber supports a Europe, in which the societal and economic model is committed to a social market economy system. International trade increases living standards and promotes understanding between people. To achieve this, certain standards must be met: human rights, environmental standards, welfare standards, international regulation of competition, a fair deal when trading goods and services.
The Austrian legal system specifies the self-government of legally stipulated representation of interests. Compulsory membership enables the Economic Chambers to balance out the varying interests of its members internally. Taking direct responsibility on this also means that the principle of subsidiarity is truly realised. Rapid economic and societal change means that entrepreneurs and business owners must keep adjusting their strategy. Therefore they need access to the latest knowledge and technologies.