From May 4 to 10, 2014 a group of Central Asian organizations in cooperation with the Austrian international organization Hilfswerk Austria International under the project  “Economic Development in Central Asia through promotion of BIOs and SMEs in the food processing sector” (EcoDev), funded by the European Union program “Central Asia - Invest III” was organized a study tour to upper Austria for local producers and SMEs, representatives of the Ministries of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, as well as the administration of the Free economic zones. The tour participants had the opportunity to visit and explore the work of a successful food cluster in Europe, in order to form food clusters and sustainability of the cluster approach in their home countries. 

Today, the group visited the company Fair Trade, which deals with certification of products from Central Asia. Thomas Angela, manager of the company told the participants about the company and about the products that can be certified on the basic principles of certification.

Also the trip participants visited Raiffeisen Ware Austria (RWA). This company is an umbellate organization for 61 cooperatives of Austria. Representatives of the company talked about the structure of the company, which includes the banking structure, the philosophy and the main principles of work, on the basis of which was formed RWA. 

Principles of RWA are primarily aimed at supporting cooperatives through Solidarity and Voluntary, Subsidiarity and Regionality.

Interesting part was the presentation of 300 important companies in Austria, where statistics about the activities of these companies were presented.