| Europe: Imports and exports continue to grow |
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issue time:2006-06-22 10:24
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Six percent of the world population currently live in the European Union and produce 40 percent of the worldwide requirement for natural stone. These countries export more than 9.5 million tons of semi-finished and finished natural stone products a year, which make up over 41 percent of the world market. For this purpose, these countries import over 9 million tons a year, almost 40 percent of world production. In the past years, the countries of the European Union registered average growth of almost five percent for exports and over seven percent for imports. The latter figure corresponds to the worldwide tendency, whereas the growth of exports was slower, mainly due to the very small growth of Italian exports. The Europeans present export hits are raw limestone blocks; the export of these has more than doubled in the past years, with imports being mainly standard semi-finished and finished products, non-dimensional slabs and tiles. In spite of the growth of natural stone markets in the Far East, Europe confirmed its leading role in the world stone market with these figures, plus some of the best prices are paid in Europe. The major natural stone consumption countries are still Germany, France and Holland. Overall, the European natural stone sector shows much larger growth than other markets in these countries. This means Europe remains the driving force behind the economy of the globally operating natural stone industry.
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