Information has become an important economic and social factor. An effective information culture is as vital to the success of any institution as the procurement and selection of relevant information is to the success of any manager.

The huge information requirements of our society have led to the development of individual branches for the supply of information and for the development of entirely new media enabling a rapid, international transfer of information and convenient information processing.

The information explosion that has taken place as well as the increased demands made on management have made it necessary to filter out the relevant information from reliable sources from an enormous supply. It is the role of Statistics Austria to provide reliably collected and expertly analysed political, social and economic information.

While statistics were originally created for administrative purposes and to form the basis of political decision-making, their application and use for this purpose has become of increasing importance for the general public. By offering tailor-made services, Statistics Austria tries to meet individual requirements and to provide the requested information to users in an easily accessible format and as quickly as possible.

With EU entry, another function of Statistics Austria has gained in importance from the users’ point of view: its function to mediate between Austria and EU data as well as to co-ordinate the pan-European harmonisation process.