13.03.2023
Annual Review 2022
The Austrian Treasury is pleased to present the Annual Review 2022, which includes a comprehensive overview of Austria’s borrowing activities and debt portfolio as well as key economic data, outlook for the current year and a foreword by the Federal Minister of Finance.
Highlights:
- The year 2022 brought both a geopolitical and a monetary policy turnaround. The zero-interest rate era came to an end and great uncertainties led to historically unprecedented volatility which posed challenges to both issuers and investors. Nevertheless, the Austrian Treasury successfully executed a record funding program:
- In total, the Republic of Austria issued EUR 44.4 bn in government bonds. The outstanding volume of the short-term financing at the end of 2022 was EUR 24.4 bn, EUR 5.6 bn higher than in the previous year.
- Despite the massive rise in yields in 2022 - the yield on 10-year Austrian government bonds increased by 3% points to 3.13% p.a. at the end of 2022 – the effective interest rate of the total financial debt portfolio was kept relatively constant at 1.20% p.a. (vs. 1.17% p.a. as of end-2021) thanks to a forward-looking debt management strategy. The maturity of the portfolio lengthened slightly over the same period, from 10.6 to 10.9 years and total funding in 2022 was executed at an average yield of 1.0% p.a. and an average term of 8.6 years.
- Also in economic and fiscal terms 2022 was better than expected by most forecasters: Thanks to a very resilient economy real GDP growth came in at 5.0%. The highest growth rate since 1979 and clearly outperforming the Eurozone average. The debt/GDP ratio also declined substantially to 78.3% of GDP (2021: 82,3%).
- The Republic of Austria demonstrates its commitment to tackling environmental challenges by various government initiatives and substantial efforts in greening up public budgets. Setting-up a second – green – pillar in the financing strategy of the Republic of Austria in the year 2022 was the logical next step to enable the green transition of the country. The introduction of green financing instruments on a broad scale, which were implemented in all relevant programmes, makes it possible to further diversify Austria’s investor base and is a perfect complement to our conventional financing instruments. After the inaugural Green Bond issue in May 2022 the Republic of Austria was the first sovereign worldwide to issue a Green Treasury Bill in October 2022, and also the first sovereign to issue Green Commercial Paper on March 6, 2023. Other formats of Green government securities include Green EMTN and Green loans (both short- and long-term). The award as „Sustainable Issuer of the Year“ at the IFR Awards 2022 values Austria’s innovative approach of offering a broad green product menu to investors.