The investment boom is favourable for Polish natural stones. The extraction, processing and application of both hard stones as well as sandstones, marbles and limestone largely increased in 2010. We should not be too optimistic, though. The time of prosperity has weak foundations and we cannot take advantage of this time without a wise strategy concerning the quarries.

 

At the first weekend in September Strzegom hosted  two important events related with stone industry: the Polish-wide stone festival (Ogólnopolski Festyn Kamienia) organised on Saturday and Sunday by Strzegom-based stone companies and the Town Council and the stone congress (Kongres Kamieniarski) organised by the Association of the Stone Industry Employers.

 

How can we describe stone industry in Masovian province? It is a difficult task because of the domination of Warsaw metropolis. Most stone works, not only in Masovia, but in the whole Poland, is concentrated there.  On the other hand, however, stone works in Warsaw are carried out by many companies from other provinces. When we speak about the market of stone companies in Masovia, we mean, most of all, Warsaw and the towns nearby, where the most prestigious projects, both for individual customers and for institutions, are carried out. But the stone companies which specialise in construction stone industry are usually located outside Warsaw. At the same time, however, Warsaw is a seat for as many as 200 hundred stone companies. Many of them are Polish-wide enterprises and representatives of foreign companies.

Autumn 2008 was the time when the beginning of the recession was announced. Stone industry in Poland was managing very well with it for more than a year. And then a strange year 2010 came... The symptoms of some changes always come first to the intermediaries – wholesalers of blocks and slabs – and this report is about them. First six months of this year brought serious changes in contracting slabs and blocks and, most of all, a huge decrease in popular stones. Before we analyse the year 2010, in order to find out the causes of the current events, we need to go several months back.

49 stone companies have already benefitted from the EU funds dedicated to support business. In total, so far the stone industry has received grants worth over 42 million PLN which come from the European Union funds and from the state budget. In terms of regions, Dolnośląskie, Świętokrzyskie and Lubelskie are the leaders.

An interview with Anurag Taparia, the vice-president of Alliance Minerals company

Adriana Bajno, „Świat Kamienia”: We are now at Stona fair in Bangalore. What do you think about this fair?

Anurag Taparia: This is the largest stone fair in India. The organisers have given it a good facelift by hosting it at a bigger and better location this year. The exhibitors are positive and optimistic as regards the expectations concerning the year 2010.

 

It is not false to say that among the West European countries, and Poland is said to be one of them,  our funeral culture and the cult of the dead are the most highly developed. We should take care of it because it constitutes a precious element of our culture. Avoiding the subject of death, dying and the cult of the dead is a characteristic feature of highly developed Western societies. Popular culture shows death in an impersonal form, a bathed in blood slaughter in a war or gangster movie. Every day we can see anonymous victims of assassinations, wars and disasters in the news on TV. We watch both these forms of dying with the same lack of emotions, being effectively separated from them by means of a TV screen. It is more and more commonly found that nowadays nursing homes, hospices or other institutions do all the necessary things when the death of someone’s beloved happens. They effectively isolate old age and illnesses from the modern society which lives in the cult of health and youth. Therefore, we should not be surprised that our Western or Southern neighbours frequently choose tombstones that do not require care, where you do not have to light candles because a diode lights for months.

The production of dimension stone in RSA is concentrated mainly on granite rock, although we can notice some interest in slate, sandstone and marble. Continuing our trip around the quarries of the Republic of Southern Africa, we are leaving Brits, where we visited the deposits of grey and black norites known under the trade name of “black granite” (from Bushveld Igneous Complex – B. C.).

There is about 1100 kilometres from Brits to Springbok when we go through Upington and Poffader. We have to go through the peripheries of South Africa, far from the popular tourist routes. Springbok is a capital city of Namakwa district where it rains most of the year. However, in late August and early September this place changes into a paradise full of flowers.

You can get there by plane from Johannesburg, but then you will not have a chance to visit all the interesting places on the way such as Augrabies Falls National Park where the longest River in South Africa falls from 240 metres. You will remember these beautiful lake and desert landscapes and rich and exotic fauna and flora for a very long time.

In our section devoted to the condition of Polish stone industry we are going to focus today on seaside provinces. Pomeranian and West Pomeranian provinces constitute a special region in Poland, also in terms of stone industry. Seaside resorts full of potential construction stone customers, close to German border (from Szczecin to Berlin there are 150 kilometres of good motorway whereas to get to Warsaw you need to drive 500 kilometres using really bad roads), or Szczecin sea port – the largest centre of block trade in this part of Europe (you can find here practically all companies which deal with block stone trade in Poland), make this region particularly suitable for the development of stone industry.

Ladies and gentleman, on the 31 July the global crisis has finished. These are not my words, I am just repeating them after the governments of the United States of America, Germany and France. It means that there must be something in it. If the largest economies are now making up for their losses, also in Poland the situation will be getting better because these three countries are our most important business partners. We must admit that the situation in Poland has not actually much worsened so we might be afraid that the worst time in Poland is right now and it will last for a few months. The decrease in the  economic situation, like circles in the water made by a thrown stone, begins at the top of the economic ladder and reaches small stone companies with a delay, sometimes after several months. The news concerning a serious turnover decrease in stone trade in the USA, Italy, Spain or Brazil reached us as early as last year.