Austria's federal government has been urged to adopt Luxembourg's Audiovisual Investment Certificate Programme in a reform of national film policy to introduce tax incentives for private investment in film production.

Luxembourg's tax scheme has been held up as an example to emulate by Andreas Mailath-Pokorny, Vienna's city councillor for arts, as a part of all-industry initiative 'to raise the cultural importance and economic effectiveness of Austrian filmmaking at home and abroad.'

Proposing a package of measures to be considered by Austria's federal government under the banner 'Agenda 2006/Strategies for Cinema', Mailath-Pokorny argued that any tax incentives should also ensure "there is no flow of capital abroad, particularly into US productions, as happened in Germany."

He also suggested that the government should raise its annual budget for film funding to a European level of at least Euros 20m - the Austrian Film Institute received an increase to Euros 9.6m last year.