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Sales of Austrian sawmills have collapsed: while the warehouses are full of wood, the price of softwood lumber has fallen by half within a few months. <\/span>Salzburg entrepreneurs attribute this, among other things, to the stricter credit guidelines of the banks, which would have reduced construction activity.<\/p>\n The Austrian wood market reacts sensitively to changes. Sales are currently falling, as is the price of wood. However, after a number of windstorms and bark beetle infestations, it is important that the Salzburg sawmills take over this wood. With full warehouses, however, this is difficult at the moment.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are already feeling it very strongly, especially the lending, the guidelines, the high interest rates. Almost nothing is actually done in private construction anymore, but that is not a phenomenon in Austria. It is a European phenomenon where we simply suffer that construction has declined so much,\u201d says the spokesman for the Salzburg timber industry, Wolfgang Hutter. After the high of the coronavirus pandemic years, the sawn timber price has now fallen sharply again - to the level of 2017 or 2018, according to Hutter. As a result, the sawmill industry would also have to adjust the log prices that it pays to forest farmers.<\/p>\n Declining capacity<\/strong><\/p>\n 40 employees work in Hutter's sawmill in St. Michael (Lungau). Hutter does everything in his power to get the jobs. Where otherwise 20 trucks are loaded every week, there are currently just ten. Wood as a building material, industrial material or raw material for packaging: there are many uses for wood, but there is significantly less demand than before. Due to the declining capacity utilization, company holidays at the Hutter sawmill will be extended from two to three weeks this year.<\/p>\n Representatives of the Salzburg forest farmers are now demanding that additional storage areas be created across Austria in order to temporarily store large quantities of excess wood. They are also demanding that the import of cheaper foreign wood be stopped. After all, the price of domestic wood has fallen sharply.<\/p>\n \"It's a sad situation now, a lot of people are disappointed. We managed to make wood the number one building material, and now we get such prices for the raw material. It is often very, very difficult to explain this to the forest owners,\u201d says the chairman of the Salzburg Forest Association, Rudolf Rosenstatter.<\/p>\n Rosenstatter is convinced that the global economy is to blame for this, not Austria or Europe. \u201cThe problem now beyond Europe is that it is incredibly weakening, cooling down, freezing. As a forest owner, you have to understand and accept that. It also hurts me personally, but I ask that you think twice before you go out somewhere with emotion, \u201dsaid Rosenstatter.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sales of Austrian sawmills have collapsed: while the warehouses are full of wood, the price of softwood lumber has fallen by half within a few months. Salzburg entrepreneurs attribute this, among other things, to the stricter credit guidelines of the … Continue reading