Area Süd: Company Visits & Networking Meetings

The Area Süd was the focus of ICS company visits last week. The monumental Koralm Tunnel project will further advance the Styria-Carinthia economic region and offers the location a once-in-a-century opportunity!

As of 2025, the Koralm Railway will connect the central areas around the two state capitals, creating a new southern economic region: a European metropolitan region with more than one million people, one hundred thousand companies, and endless opportunities for more growth, even higher quality of life, and less emigration. The excellent accessibility and larger catchment area will provide a strong impetus for the future. With AREA SÜD, the second-largest economic region in our country is emerging in southern Austria.

During the meeting with MSG Mechatronic Systems GmbH, a Styrian flagship company from the automotive sector. With an impressive 98% export quota, the owner-managed company from Wies is already an important player in Europe & China, where they also successfully operate a joint venture. At our meeting with CEO Martin Kollmann as well as Fritz Kobald, Armin Treichler and Franz Krautberger, an intensive exchange took place with ICS CEO Karl Hartleb, resulting in concrete tasks for the ICS. We are pleased to take on an exciting package of tasks and to support MSG in supplier search and its establishment in further overseas markets.

Growing together & networking were the focus of the meeting with colleagues from WKO Carinthia , including Director Meinrad Höfferer and Head of Foreign Trade Carinthia Hemma Kircher-Schneider. In the future, we will increasingly support internationally active companies together to fully exploit the potential of the newly created AREA SÜD.

It is rightly considered a once-in-a-century opportunity, as it provides a strong impetus for companies in Styria and Carinthia for the coming decades. The new axis in southeastern Austria enables more contacts, more exchange, and more business. It is a fresh lifeline that makes AREA SÜD a super-region in the heart of Europe.

The improved visibility as an economic hub and logistics center, the stronger networking of educational institutions, the convenient mobility between city and countryside – all this makes Carinthia and Styria a new focal point in the Alpine-Adriatic region.