Curious order

City of Salzburg has stones from China installed

The Reichenhaller Straße is getting new kerbstones. The granite for this comes from China.

(Bild: Tschepp Markus)

In Reichenhaller Straße, workers are currently renewing the sidewalk on behalf of the City of Salzburg. The granite for this comes from the Far East. "Simply for cost reasons", they say. 

An attentive Krone reader could hardly believe his eyes as he strolled along Salzburg's Reichenhaller Straße these days. Workers are currently laying new kerbstones there. The granite blocks have had an extremely long journey. "Country of origin: China" is written on the packages stored in the Riedenburg district. "As if there were no stones in Salzburg," the Salzburg native shakes his head. He is also certain: "Chinese granite was also laid at the Rehrl School in Lehener Straße."

The inscription proves it. .

(Bild: zVg)

In response to an inquiry from the City of Salzburg, the "Krone" newspaper reported that the choice of materials was the decision of the construction company. There had been a tender for the work in Reichenhaller Straße. The origin of the granite was not specified there. The company was the "best bidder" and the laying of the Chinese stones was therefore a question of price. "Where the company sources the stones from is not at our discretion," it says.

Stonemasons cannot keep up with the price
Online retailers charge just under 20 US dollars per running meter of granite from the port in China - domestic stonemasons can't compete with that. This is despite the fact that the Far East stone blocks have traveled thousands of kilometers by sea.

(Bild: Honorar)

If local stone were to be used in Salzburg in future, this would have to be clearly regulated by tender. And this is where the next bureaucratic hurdle would lurk. "The whole thing would have to be EU-compliant," they say. Various regulations could quickly be violated.

China stone on domestic construction sites - this is certainly not a rarity. Recently, a similar case even occupied the Upper Austrian state parliament. Granite from the Far East was also used on a construction site in the Mühlviertel region.