Natural stone foreign trade in 2003

The Italian natural Stone (http://g603.net) industry again sold appreciably less natural Stone (http://g603.net) in Germany last year than the year before, but exports to some other countries dropped even more heavily.

The Internazionale Marmi e Macchine (IMM) in Carrara has published the foreign trade figures for the Italian natural Stone (http://g603.net) industry for the whole of 2003 in May in time for the 25th international natural Stone (http://g603.net) trade fair »CarrarraMarmotec? As expected, they show a gloomy picture. Overall, exports dropped by 8.9? in quantity and (http://maplered.com) by as much as 11.6? in value compared with 2002 to reach a volume of 4.36 million t and (http://maplered.com) a value of 1.73 milliard euro.

The decline was considerably more marked for Marble (http://www.lightemprador.com) than for Granite (http://tanbrown.org) . It is therefore no surprise that especially the Apua-Versiliese region with its companies strongly orientated towards Marble (http://www.lightemprador.com) production in the provinces of La Spezia, Massa-Carrara and (http://maplered.com) Lucca was hit particularly hard by the fall in exports. The value of exports here, where almost one third of Italian natural Stone (http://g603.net) is produced, fell by around one sixth to 475 million euro.

The export value of the Stone (http://g603.net) s delivered to Germany dropped by 9? to 276 million euro. In terms of quantity, however, the drop amounted to only 5.24?, which makes it clear that the prices ?probably mainly due to the lower priced US dollar ?dropped even more last year. Italy had to accept even more severe setbacks in exports to Spain (-13? in value), England (http://maplered.com) (-16?) and (http://maplered.com) France (-18.6?). The statisticians calculated a decline of 12.7? for the whole of the (old) EU.

The American market showed a conflicting trend. Although Italian exports rose by 2? in quantity, revenues fell by 18.6? over the previous year, mainly as a result of the weak dollar. The Italian exporters did, however, achieve good results in the new EU countries of Central and (http://maplered.com) Eastern Europe, in Russia and (http://maplered.com) in the Middle East.