Carinthia Chamber of Commerce

Carinthia Chamber of Commerce
legal form	Public corporation
founding	1850
Seat	Klagenfurt , Austria
management	Jürgen Mandl (President); Michael Stattmann (Director);
Website	www.wko.at/

The Carinthian Chamber of Commerce (WKK) is one of the nine regional chambers of the Austrian economy and thus the sole legal interest representation of the economy in the southernmost state of Carinthia . It was founded on March 26, 1850 as part of the umbrella organization of the Austrian Chamber of Commerce (WKÖ).

General

The Carinthian Chamber of Commerce, with its headquarters in Klagenfurt am Wörthersee, is part of the Austrian Chamber of Commerce and is subject to the 1998 Chamber of Commerce Act (WKG ) , just like the other eight federal states (Burgenland, Lower Austria , Upper Austria , Salzburg, Styria, Tyrol, Vorarlberg , Vienna) ) (previously Chamber of Commerce Act (HKG)). The members of the WKK are all persons who are self-employed according to the Austrian Trade Code (GewO), whereby they are not only members of the Carinthian Chamber of Commerce, but also their responsible specialist group, the Austrian Chamber of Commerce and the relevant professional association. Membership does not apply to those companies from agriculture and the liberal professions .

In Carinthia there are a total of eight district offices that represent the interests of the commercial economy in the district, maintain member contacts and implement the Chamber's range of services. These district offices are located in Klagenfurt am Wörthersee, Villach , Wolfsberg , Völkermarkt , Hermagor , St. Veit an der Glan , Feldkirchen and Spittal . A branch of the Carinthian Economic Development Institute (WIFI) can also be found in every district office. The district offices are run by district office managers and represented by elected district office officers.

tasks

The areas of activity of the Carinthian Chamber of Commerce consist of several areas of responsibility. With regard to the chambers of commerce's own sphere of activity (that is the area that has been assigned to them by the state so that they are not subject to instructions), the state only has a supervisory right. The chamber's supervisory authority is the Federal Minister for Economic Affairs, Family and Youth. In addition, the chambers also perform tasks that have been assigned to them by law for procurement, subject to the instructions of administrative bodies (assigned scope).

Advocacy

The WKK stands for an active shaping of the economic framework conditions in Carinthia and thus supports its members in matters of political interest. It not only represents the political will-making process at regional, but also at national and EU level.

service

The Carinthian Chamber of Commerce is the first point of contact for its members when it comes to information and advice, and helps as an initiator and mediator in business development activities.

education

The members of the WKK always receive the latest knowledge in all economic matters through active knowledge brokers . In addition, the Institute for Economic Development (WIFI) ensures optimal training and further education with courses from many areas, events and workshops.

Headquarters of the Carinthian Chamber of Commerce

Members

The members of the Carinthian Chamber of Commerce, as well as in the other chambers of commerce, understand themselves as all physical and legal persons as well as other legal entities, the enterprises of the trade, the craft, the industry, the mining, the trade, the money, credit and insurance, traffic, news traffic, radio, tourism and leisure industry as well as other services legally independently operate or are authorized to operate.

Rights and duties of members

According to Section 4 (1) of the WKG, the rights of a member of the Carinthian Chamber of Commerce include the right to vote and to participate in the decision-making process of the organs, as well as the right to information, access to the Chamber's services and to inspect the approved estimates and financial statements . The duties, on the other hand, relate in particular to participating in statistical surveys, providing information, paying levies and notifying the company that a business has been started.

Membership Statistics

The development of the members of the Carinthian Chamber of Commerce since 1980 can be presented as follows.

year	Total members	of which active members
1980	18,867	15,903
1990	20,643	17,210
2000	25,661	20,493
2005	29,153	23,487
2010	32,745	26,639
2015	39,286	31,565
2016	40,363	32,559
2017	41,261	33.112
2018	41,643	33,964
2019	41,994	34,446

The number of active members of the WKK by division is as follows.

branch	Active members (as of 2018)
Trade and craft	17.169
Industry	389
trade	9,985
Bank and insurance	78
Transport and traffic	1,892
Tourism and leisure industry	5,312
Information and Consulting	5,306

The real-time data on members can always be viewed through the Carinthian Chamber of Commerce's workplace ticker.

structure

Like the other economic chambers, the WKK is divided into a total of seven divisions, which act as links between the professional organizations and the chamber.

These seven divisions are in turn divided into specialist organizations (specialist groups).

Bureau

The Presidium of the Carinthian Chamber of Commerce is elected every five years.

Current presidium

Jürgen Mandl , MBA (President)
Astrid Legner (Vice President)
Otmar Petschnig (Vice President)
Alfred Trey (Vice President)
Günter Burger (Vice President)
Michael Stattmann (Director)

Previous presidents after 1945

KommR Dipl.-Ing. Robert Rapatz (1945–1955)
Werner Pfrimer (1955–1972)
Karl Construction Law (1972–1990)
Karl Koffler (1990–1999)
Franz Pacher (1999-2014)
Jürgen Mandl (since 2014)

elections

Like every Chamber of Commerce, the WKK is represented by directly and indirectly elected functionaries who are elected every five years in the course of the Chamber of Commerce election in the form of a primary election by the respective members. The term of office of the elected officials is five years; re-election is possible. All active members of the Chamber of Commerce over 18 years of age who have not opened insolvency proceedings are eligible. In contrast to national elections, citizens of the EU as well as from countries in which Austrians are eligible also have the right to stand for election. A term of office lasts five years. Individual bodies such as the president, departmental chairpersons or specialist group chairpersons may exercise their office for a maximum of four terms.

Those members are entitled to vote who have not registered their company as dormant by the date of the Chamber of Commerce election. Should a member with dormant authorization want to vote in spite of all this, the application for inclusion in the electoral roll must be made beforehand. The elections for the Chamber of Commerce are general, equal and secret, in which each authorized member only has one vote. Chamber members entitled to vote have one vote in each specialist group / specialist representation in which they have registered a trade.

In the first instance, a direct election is made by the members of each specialist group. They give their vote to one of the political organizations that run for the election. The distribution of mandates in each section that forms the section committee results from the votes obtained. The specialist group committee finally elects the chairman and his two deputies. The division representatives and the division conference are filled by the main election committee on the basis of the results of the primary elections in the relevant national division. The number of members is determined in the branch election catalog after hearing the regional chambers. The thematic conferences consist of a minimum of 10 and a maximum of 32 members. The division chairman and his deputy are elected by the division conference from among its members. The economic parliament is recruited from the branch representatives and other (minority) representatives and elects the president and two vice-presidents from among all elected chamber members.

Elections 2015

The 2015 Chamber of Commerce elections took place on February 25th and 26th, and with a total of 64.0%, the Austrian Economic Association (ÖWB), a sub-organization of the Austrian People's Party (ÖVP), was the winner. In contrast to the previous Chamber of Commerce elections in Carinthia, the ÖWB was able to record an increase of 2.6%. The turnout decreased from 35.9% in the election year 2010 to 29.2%. From this election Jürgen Mandl emerged as President of the Carinthian Chamber of Commerce.

2020 elections

After the election days at the beginning of March 2020, when 35,273 entrepreneurs had the chance to elect their representatives, the Austrian Business Association, together with President Jürgen Mandl, emerged as the election winner with a total of 77.3%. The comparison to the previous elections in 2015 shows an increase of 13.27% for the ÖWB. The Liberal Economy finished this election with 7.5%, the Social Democratic Business Association with 6.2%, the Green Economy with 7.4% and the UNOs, which had entered for the first time, 0.9%. The rest is on lists of names. The turnout was 28.2 percent.

Individual evidence

^ History of the Austrian Economic Chambers. Retrieved January 28, 2020 .
↑ Carinthia Chamber of Commerce: Always there for you in all districts! Start-up service, accessed on January 28, 2020 .
^ Tasks of the Austrian Economic Chambers. Retrieved January 28, 2020 .
↑ The institution WIFI. Retrieved January 28, 2020 .
↑ ^a ^b RIS - Economic Chamber Act 1998 - Consolidated Federal Law, version of January 29, 2020. Accessed on January 29, 2020 .
↑ Austrian Economic Chambers : Chamber of Commerce members by federal state. In: WKO. Austrian Economic Chambers, January 2020, accessed on January 29, 2020 .
^ Austrian Chambers of Commerce: Active division memberships 2018. In: WKO Statistics. Austrian Economic Chambers, 2018, accessed on January 29, 2020 .
^ Structures of the Austrian Economic Chambers. Retrieved January 28, 2020 .
↑ The Presidium. Retrieved January 28, 2020 .
↑ Member of the Corps Teutonia Graz
^ Austrian Economic Chambers: The Austrian Economic Chambers . What we stand for Who we are How we work. Ed .: Austrian Economic Chambers. Vienna July 2013, p. 29 .
↑ Austrian Economic Chambers: The Austrian Economic Chambers . What we stand for Who we are How we work. Ed .: Austrian Economic Chambers. Vienna July 2013, p. 6 .
↑ WK election 2015: two-thirds majority for Wirtschaftsbund - results. February 27, 2015, accessed January 28, 2020 .
↑ Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Flickr, Instagram: WK election: Wirtschaftsbund expands majority. Retrieved March 10, 2020 .
^ Carinthia Chamber of Commerce elections. Retrieved January 28, 2020 .