Members of the delegation had individual meetings with local businessmen and discussed partnership, joint venture and investment prospects, Pierre Prunis, commercial counselor at the Austrian Embassy’s commercial section in Riyadh, who accompanied the delegation, said at the Jeddah InterContinental Hotel.

Prunis and Andreas Wolf, the embassy’s commercial attaché, said the delegation found the Saudi market had vast potential for business and so would visit more often than its current once a year schedule.

In fact, an Austrian water delegation is planning to come around December this year when the Jeddah Water Forum is scheduled to be held. “We have expertise in all aspects of water including waste water and sewage treatment, and our specialized companies will be interested in participating in such projects,” Prunis said.

Austrian companies, he said, will be concentrating on doing business with their Saudi counterparts because the Kingdom has remained unaffected by the world economic slowdown of the past few years and also by the ongoing conflicts in some parts of the Middle East region.

Prunis said Austrian exports to the Kingdom were worth 386 million euros in 2010 as against its imports totaling 43 million euros from the Kingdom.

“There was a stagnation of exports form Austria to the Kingdom because of a drastic drop of steel deliveries worth 100 million euros in 2009 to 6 million euros in 2010 and that explains why there was a drop in the exports. Austria’s exports to the Middle East totaled 1.56 billion euros in 2010, while its imports from the Middle East were worth 922 million euros.

Some of the companies representing the trade mission are small and medium enterprises and are here for the first time.

These SMEs are already serving the niche market because of the high quality of their products and services. Participation in upcoming Riyadh international trade exhibitions is also part of their agenda.

They are involved in health care, pharmaceutical, railway, firefighting equipment, paper, automotive, construction of buildings and warehouses, industrial metals and semi finished products, technology for cooling and heating, steel and chemical products, timber and other areas.