FDI in Austria: German Chocolate Group a "Success Story" Just One Year After Mars Takeover
Foreign direct investment is on a downward trend in Austria relative to GDP. It is therefore all the more gratifying that the Baden-Württemberg family-owned company Alfred Ritter is ranked as one of the "success stories" in the ABA ranking barely one year after the Mars takeover and start of production in Breitenbrunn, Burgenland.
Ritter Sport Factory in Waldenbuch, Germany. / Picture: © Wikimedia Commons / -- Felix König ✉ +/-, Public Domain
For more than a decade, foreign direct investment in relation to GDP, both in and out of Austria, has been on a downward trend.
In addition, the global economic environment had deteriorated during the Trump era due to trade conflicts and increasingly confrontational U.S. economic diplomacy.
The U.S. tax reform reduced global FDI flows by 25% as a result of the tax-friendly treatment of repatriations of profits and assets from abroad. Passive FDI flows to the OECD fell by 22%, largely due to disinvestment in Ireland and Switzerland and reduced investment in the UK, the US and Germany.
Recently, foreign investors' confidence in Austria as an FDI destination has risen again, but the global environment has cooled.
The ABA Austrian Business Agency reports on a company that has bucked this trend by investing in Austria and which it has assisted in entering the market.
German chocolate company Alfred Ritter GmbH & Co. KG took over most of Mars Austria's wafer factory in Breitenbrunn, Burgenland, near Lake Neusiedl, in early 2021.
The takeover of the Mars factory represents an historical milestone for the company. …
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