The defining factor of 2009 is certainly the extent of the crisis in the Western world and the traditionally advanced markets, a crisis that has heavily and adversely affected the whole year. Despite widespread signs of economic recovery and consolidation appearing late in the year, each region of the world responded at a noticeably different pace and intensity. Recovery was stronger in the new economies, especially China, India and Brazil, yet slower elsewhere, mainly the euro-zone and the United Kingdom. It is first and foremost the European Union that shows uncertainties due to a number of factors triggered off by the Greek crisis, which is still something that some potentially define as the “European subprime mortgage crisis”. And while there are differences, and significant ones, within the European Union, as a whole there is still hope for a stronger recovery which is slow to come (Portugal, Spain, Ireland, as well as Greece). However, even here, the first few months of 2010 showed improvements of many economic indicators, from retail sales to exports to the rest of Europe and to the emerging countries as well as to the United States. In the United States, signs of a recovery, which is faster that in the other Western countries, are reported on many fronts, starting from the flows of goods, and a feeble but steady, widespread recovery of property sales which began to be felt as early as the first two months of this year and were confirmed later in the year, although with significant differences from region to region and the different types of properties.
Employment on the other hand is slow to pick up, especially in the European countries, while even in this area the United States is one step ahead and has already recorded a reduction, at least in terms of the loss of employment, with some industries even experiencing a slight recovery in their key indicators.

Among the emerging economies, however, the Far Eastern countries, along with Brazil and other smaller countries did not experience the same tough times as the Western, industrialised world: not only did the expansion of business in the main emerging markets not face any major obstacles, it actually got stronger even as early as the end of last year and continued to be consolidated in early 2010. As regards China, the undisputed key player in international trade (in 2009 it surpassed Germany as an exporting country, and it is expected to surpass even Japan in a few months’ time), in the last few months of the year the GDP grew by +10.7% compared to the same period the year before and by +9.1% on the previous quarter, with property prices still rising, at over +10% in January, compared to the same month in 2009. The picture is not so bright in India, especially because of agricultural problems and public expenditure, but its final balance certainly does not look so negative as the Western countries. Brazil’s economy, on the other hand, experienced definite expansion: the GDP grew (+8.4% p.a. in the last quarter), and retail consumption, industrial production as well as imports are on the rise too. In Eastern Europe, the situation is improving at a much slower rate, even though it is not the same throughout: Russia’s GDP has started to grow again and forecasts for 2010 are good too; the same applies to Poland and other countries, while forecasts are more uncertain for Romania.

Overall, the rise in global trade, although steadily growing by the end of the year, has not got back to 2008 levels yet, and this still affects the global scenario. While the recovery of the United States seems to be faster and better than expected, it is still a good idea to be cautious when considering a system that still has issues with self-regulation and governance that are essential to ward off any future disastrous crisis or bubble. If it is true, as some say, that the United States is again the international investors’ favourite destination, rather than China because of the fear of new bubbles, the next decisions in terms of market regulation, especially for the financial markets, will become the true test bench of global governance.

The stone industry too has been affected by the general crisis that has hit the main economic industries. After all how could it escape it, given the extent of the crisis and above all given the situation of the areas and activities involved. Even as early as last year it was clear that in countries such as the United States the property and building industries were actually in the midst of the processes that had caused the speculative bubbles, but the effects had already been quantified in the area of stone materials, in terms of domestic consumption and trade with the USA, that had actually disappeared from the global stone trade. Instead of starting from the United States, but looking in general at the stone industry, it can be said that at the end of 2009 signs of its reduction could be seen everywhere, with few, very few, exceptions. Above all it can be said that the reduction affected different sectors differently. The tables below list the trade of some items, sorted by imports and exports and countries in most of the major countries, as no data were available for the minor regions, and not many at all for the Middle Eastern regions. It should be no surprise that declared imports are different from exports: for an explanation, see the Notes in Tables C in the Statistic Annex to our publication, where the reasons for such differences in declarations of the same trade are widely explained. What is important is to consider the variations in amounts, on a yearly and two-yearly basis. These are figures that can be taken from our tables, processed from the official data of each country shown in Tables C of this publication and – in much more detail – in the Country Sheets that can be consulted on our website (www.immcarrara.com/stat), where we list trade over the last five years per country, sorted by items, trade and partner countries.

In all four tables, any change since 2009 from the previous years is in the region of about 10% less in terms of quantity, and this is fairly consistent. Moreover this is not a slight decrease, especially if we consider it is on a yearly basis and that it differs according to the material and type. For the sake of simplicity, we will consider exports since they are generally more consistent and less affected by any distortion. The general situation looks worse, mostly as regards raw materials and granite, whose global trade shares are falling significantly. The figures look even clearer if we extend our survey to two years ago: the reduction in quantity is widespread and indisputable. Imports confirm the trend, even if with slightly different absolute figures. However what is significant is what these figures mean and this is clear and unfortunately negative.

There is another factor worth mentioning. In our surveys, we usually base our processed stone statistics on raw materials, even if in this way these statistics are estimates and therefore virtual. However this method helps determine, fairly well, the volumes of materials upstream of the process that are involved in the global trade process. In addition these tables show that, if the quarried amounts are close to 100 million tons, and they certainly exceed that amount, one can assume a total domestic market in excess of 50% of the quarried materials in the world, and that, even in 2009, although still in the midst of a general production and consumption crisis, this still played a key role across the industry. In many countries, domestic consumption exceeded exports, and, even during this low period, they kept on building and using stone in all its possible forms and applications, starting with China, the country that has been the industry leader for many years now and that has shown a world-class performance in the stone trade that it is now repeating in other industries as well.

China is actually one of the big players as shown in Tables 3 and 4, which clearly shows granite as the main item in international trade, despite the fact that its figures have decreased the most over the last few years. The figures clearly show that marble and limestone have a more stable global market, even if smaller in volumes, most likely resulting from their traditional presence on the global scene and the smaller number of valuable bodies across the world. There are in fact beautiful and “precious” materials, and all of them are widely appreciated, but, in the world of granite, things are a bit staid, and this has helped stabilise the situation in the long term. Granite has a wide range of applications and markets and in general its varieties are commercially younger in terms of big numbers and widespread major applications in which they have been recently used.

What countries were the market leaders in 2009? We mentioned China, the great performer over the last few years. It was again in 2009 despite the crisis that affected it a little bit too, especially in exports of its most important material, granite, and in its main form, i.e. processed granite. Chinese exports of processed granite to the rest of the world decreased by -5.7% in terms of quantity and, since the figures for 2008 were basically the same as 2007, this is the first time its exports had a negative balance. Domestic consumption certainly increased further, but this is not the reason for such a fall: its main buyers, South Korea and Japan, decreased their exports from China by -6.4% and -10.3%, respectively, and its most profitable market (per product unit), the United States, also decreased by a further -20.1%, again, after an already difficult 2008 (all statistics in our official tables are given in quantities: in these notes, we have used unpublished but still official value-based figures we had available). Exports of granite blocks also decreased, -43.9%, but in this case the volumes were much smaller. To compensate for that, though, exports of processed marble increased significantly(+17.5%), especially to South Korea (+39.2% p.a., even if the quantities here are about one quarter of those of processed granite), although overall they were still much lower than those of granite. As for imports, China has bought increasing volumes of materials year by year, mostly raw marble, and it mainly buys from Turkey (+9.1%), Egypt (+3.7%), Italy (+9.9%), as well as, although less than before, from Iran (-12.2%) and Spain (-21.6%). Raw granite too is a strong component of Chinese imports, even if in 2009 it was less than in 2008: -4.5% overall, mainly due to imports from India (-7.9%) and the Scandinavian countries, while Brazil is playing a slightly more important role (+3.4%) alongside a surprising Saudi Arabia (+13.7%). The picture is one of a country that increasingly supplements, year after year, its domestic resources with resources from the rest of the world, whenever they actually complete its own domestic materials, even semantically. In this respect and in its “newest” country, stone still offers an advanced profile on the global market which, despite having damaged and still damaging some traditional producers, leaves plenty of room for novelty and rising supply and demand, outlining new scenarios and new challenges, even after thousands of years of active life. If the stone industry, as we mentioned before, can be viewed as an industry which sometimes anticipates trends that eventually affect other industries, then we can expect good news, even very good news, in the future in other businesses that are comparable to ours, and together we can try to anticipate potential response strategies just by learning from the stone industry in a sort of experimenta in corpore vili.

However, the United States is still the country most under observation in this industry. All through 2009, the USA imported a total quantity of processed marble and granite that was far less than that of processed granite alone imported as far back as 2005: this was just a little more than 2 million tons, with a -32.3% drop on 2008, which rose to -47.3% on 2007, and less than a half of what they imported in 2006. We are speaking of volumes, not values, but the latter are actually better at defining the current changes and the extent of the trend. Overall, in 2009, US imports of processed granite were worth approximately 980 million dollars and we only find such a low figure back in 2003. Compared with 2008, the drop exceeded -34.4%, slightly higher than the drop in volume (and the average values per ton of product actually decreased by -8.7% in the overall entry). Nevertheless, the average value of granite imported from Italy and from China, as the main countries, increased, while the role of top exporter on the total value, also of processed granite, was still played by Brazil, followed by China, India and Italy. Of these four leaders, the highest average value was that of Italy, with approximately 1325$ per ton of product imported to the USA, while India totalled 776 and Brazil 727. Brazil was still the top supplier in terms of volumes as well, followed by China, India and Italy. As regards US imports of granite blocks, India, Canada, Zimbabwe and China were, in this order, its greatest partners, but with a tangible drop in the total entries, especially for China. The main marble suppliers were Turkey, China and Italy, all steeply decreasing on a yearly basis, but increasing in their average values per ton. Italy, in particular, and Greece had a very high average value in US dollars, along with Canada, France, and to a lesser extent, Egypt. All the others, at least those of any significance, lost value.

But can we expect any improvement in the United States in the short term? Let’s look at the overall market, as the key scenario in which we work, and let’s reflect on potential developments, especially in terms of economic and property market trends. Just as we write, in the midst of the crisis that the European Union is experiencing due to the public debt downgrading in Greece, Portugal and Spain, the United States is seeing further growth in overall domestic production, which is higher than expected, in the first quarter of the year: +3.2%, even if economists warn that it is still far from regaining the ground lost with the recession. What is certain is that fear that the worst is over decreases with each announcement, and many say that house prices too, so far comparatively affordable, will eventually boost sales, with an expected real estate market growth of about 3 – 4%: will it be enough to boost the recovery of our industry as well? And, above all, will it be sound and lasting enough? Of course nobody can answer that question yet. Perhaps we should quote Apple-founder Steve Jobs who said it was easier for him to imagine how the world will be in ten years’ time than in six months’ time. Of course there are lots and lots of causes for uncertainty and the fear that something unexpected may happen, after such events as 9/11, aggravates the fear of the problems we know, all the more so if we think of some expensive ecological disaster or financial sideslip, such as the major banks going bankrupt. But there are also many reasons to trust, as well as fear, the future, even in our industry, which, after a millennium-long life, still seems capable of renewing itself and expanding.

What happened to stone in the rest of the world? Still in the list of big producers, it was not a great year for India. Its exports, especially of processed materials, but also of blocks, decreased significantly on a yearly basis, even if the statistics we have only cover the first 11 months of 2009. However a comparison with the previous year’s statistics show a -12.7%drop in processed granite from 2008, which can hardly be recouped in one month, and the same applies to granite blocks, the yearly exports of which fell by -22.3%, even harder to recoup in one month. For the latter, this drop occurred mainly in exports to China (we could feel it from what we had seen before for this country), Italy and the United States. Indian exports of processed materials decreased, especially to the United States but to all of the partner countries. It is interesting to look at Brazil’s statistics too. Brazil is a country that had a very difficult year in 2009, mainly in terms of its granite exports, especially because its closest and most important partner country, the USA, steeply reduced their imports, mostly of processed granite. In terms of value, that was a -27.4% shrinkage over the year, worth a total of 355 million dollars, out of the 483 that account for global Brazil exports of that material. As for granite blocks, China was Brazil’s greatest partner country, and it too reduced its imports (we saw it before, from the Chinese side) but definitely less than its second greatest partner country, Italy, which almost cut them by half, according to the Brazilian authorities. However, the first few months of 2010 seem to record a feeble reversal in the trend that will hopefully get stronger over the year.

As for Europe, it is worth having a look at Germany, the top importer of processed material. In 2009 its imports of marble and processed granite decreased by -6% by volume on 2008 and by -9.6% on 2007, a decrease mainly due to granite, and one which became more marked in the last year. Germany imported less granite from Italy and from the Netherlands, while its imports from China remained basically steady in terms of volume. In terms of values, instead, the reduction was general, and was definitely higher in terms of the average value for what comes from China and India. Processed marble retained the already low levels of the previous years, while German imports of blocks also fell further by nearly 20% over the year.

There is still Africa to be explored, in its most dynamic countries: the northern part of the continent or, if you prefer, the southern Mediterranean region. Africa is an area that is closely related to all Mediterranean countries, and lately even to China. Egypt especially, a country from which it is very difficult to get consistent statistics year after year or quickly enough to let us add it to our ratings, is expanding at a remarkable rate, and the figures we saw in the tables of its greatest partner country accounted for such expansion: a 3.7% rise in marble in 2009 alone, which corroborates what has been happening already, and steadily growing, however, for the last five years at least, at a considerable pace. For the moment, this only concerns raw materials and far fewer processed materials, but certainly they do not all stay on Chinese ground and are added to the mix of materials that are processed and eventually sold abroad. The other North African countries mainly trade with Italy which finds a nearby shore, willing to appreciate and give a new lease of life to its materials: Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia and Libya are the recipients of raw material exports, especially from Tuscany and mainly marble, and we will see its performance later on, when we review the Italian statistics.
Turkey too must be included in the review of the international industry scenario. It has increased its exports of marble blocks in terms of quantity and value, actually more in terms of quantity than value. Its performance was not so good as regards processed materials, where even Turkey experienced an appreciable slowdown, but 2009 was still a basically positive year for this country. This result is mainly accounted for by China, mainly in terms of marble blocks, but also India, even if in both cases the average value per ton of product dropped slightly over the year.
All things considered, however, after reading the statistics and analysed their meaning, we can say that on a global scale the stone industry too has had its fair share of problems, some more serious than others. Moreover, it can be said that the industry is still deeply involved in the international events as most other industries, with no anti-cyclical trends, except for few, even if important, cases. The industry has been hit by the crisis affecting the Western economies and the expansive strength of the new economies, reflecting their trends and fluctuations, but it has also proven to be peculiarly “resilient”, a strength that has enabled it to play a distinctive role in the economy of many important countries.

For the second year running, Italian exports of stone processing machinery and advanced technology showed a negative balance on the previous year, which after 2005 was the first to show a yearly reduction. These were still very substantial figures and are still important for the domestic mechanical industry, especially in the light of what we have seen happening in the global stone industry. If there is no growth, it is difficult to invest, even if obviously some countries and some areas not only keep buying technology, but actually continue working to strengthen production and innovation. Italian machinery exports for 2009 are shown in the Table below.

These figures are fairly low, and the details show that the greatest reduction is in primary cutting machines which have fallen more by volume, or actually by weight (a fairly unique measurement unit but one that makes comparisons consistent), than by value. They are not the highest entry, but are certainly important enough to affect the overall result: -31.7% in terms of value on the previous year.

Comparing the last three years, the figures are even worse, but looking at the trend over a longer time span may help relate the crisis of Italian technology with the “mother” crisis of the stone industry.

This is not however the only cause for these reductions. It is also due to increasing technological competition in many areas of the world: small markets as well as regional and sub-continental ones, that are beginning to come to the fore, especially in areas where it is not so much the consumption of stone materials as their processing for end users that is growing and is based on the local production resources. This is first and foremost the underlying theme we should look at as we read the statistics on technology, and it immediately becomes the link between the leading producers and processors of stone materials (some of which inevitably deserve special attention) and the destination markets of their stone products. The crisis in the industry, in particular on some consumer markets we have covered, has triggered off knock-on effects that are reflected by the figures for the Italian machine industry, which has always been considered the most advanced and sophisticated industry, the one that produces the world’s best and most innovative stone processing technology. It is no longer the only producer, although it did account for 80% of global trade, yeti t is still the most advanced in terms of quality, especially for intricate, sophisticated projects.

There are some new elements, however, in the figures of 2009, and some factors that may be surprising, sometimes positively. Along with reductions, there has also been some expansion for new players, which the Italian stone processing machinery industry resorted to, quickly and successfully. The most important partner in 2009 was Egypt in all of the categories our surveys usually cover, the only ones whose figures seem to be reliable and “clean” enough. Egypt, despite a slight drop in figures from 2008, imported primary and secondary cutting machinery, processing machinery and machine tools from Italy worth over 29 million Euros, as shown in the Table below.

The figures show that the list of countries that import technology from Italy has changed, sometimes even significantly, in one year’s time, and, while generally China is remarkably rising, so is Saudi Arabia, along with a more recent Algeria, while the fall of India is beginning to be felt along with the slightly lesser one of the United States. The Mediterranean region, alongside the nearby Middle-Eastern area, remains an important centre for Italy, to have relations with and trade not only stone and stone products but also plants and machinery, including lighter types (note that our figures do no include quarrying and handling machinery and equipment, since their statistic classes are too ‘contaminated’ for the official sources we can draw from).

It is worth mentioning the negative role played by Belgium, Germany, France and Turkey, must more surprising than the more predictable Brazil. Turkey is actually beginning to manufacture some types of machinery on its own and it is also starting to export them, and not just to neighbouring countries. As a matter of fact, some general market trends had already taken shape in the first half of 2009, and the situation that loomed ahead was unfortunately confirmed by the end of the year. The key point that seems to surface from this picture is that in fact no result is ever settled once and for all. It takes relentless work, energy to grow and be established as well as investments to build the future. Even a comparatively sound leadership, like that of Italy in the stone-processing mechanic industry, still has to overcome endless, ever-new challenges that demand endless tensions and endless work not to fall behind. In addition, such an innovative industry, and one that as any other industry has a more or less high innovation content, requires a close relationship with the user market, in this case the stone market, just because of the development of that extra experimentation that is conditional on innovation and ultimately on competitiveness, without adding costs that would otherwise become unsustainable in the long run. Competitors run after, often paradoxically favoured by the possibility to copy and thus use work that requires time, investments and hard work on the part of the innovator, and the time it takes to cover the distance between those who copy and those who produce becomes ever shorter in a world that communicates in real time, to every corner of the earth. Then when the chaser can rely on a general propensity for research and innovation, as is the case with some important new industry competitors, things get even more complicated.

In this, the stone technology industry is very similar to other Italian local technological producers, and maybe this will make for more intensive exchanges, not just of knowledge but also of working methods, and maybe it will further an increasingly selective importation of information and innovation and even the sharing of negative experiences to be discussed together and develop shared strategies. This reflection objectively attaches more importance to those who already tend to think not only in terms of factors of competitiveness, but also in terms of production chains and shared purposes. But in the meantime the key fact is still there: in addition to the crisis of the Italian stone industry, we must admit that marble technology and the other dimensional stones have hit a bad patch.

Now, let’s look, even if only in terms of figures, at some of Italy’s partner countries that have experienced the greatest changes or are important for the domestic production of stone processing machinery. Let’s start with Turkey, that had an overall negative balance, even a heavy one on a two-yearly basis, but that in 2009 started to buy Italian cutting machines again. We should say that all of the Turkish technology imports have recently decreased from all foreign suppliers, since the country is working towards independence, in this area. In addition, exports of finished materials, especially finished marble, slowed down in Turkey, something that did not happen instead for raw and semi-finished products. Despite this, Turkey remained an important partner for many Italian companies that still have a special relationship of cooperation with the local stone industry.

Quite a different story can be seen in Brazil. Firstly we should say that statistics from Brazilian sources offer a somewhat different picture of imports from Italy, which look a little more favourable than it would appear from the statistics provided by Istat, the National Statistical Institute, not so much in the absolute figures as in the continuation of the national leadership, despite a decreasing trend, which is more or less marked depending on the type of product. However, the overall balance, based on the Italian statistics, is negative, although it shows some signs of a recent recovery.

Once again, exports of cutting machinery seem to be substantially improving from two years ago, while the same cannot be said for the other items. And once again the decline we saw in Brazilian exports to their main foreign customer, the United States, has certainly contributed to slowing down that high end market where Italian technology is the preferred partner.
And it is precisely the US imports from Italy that supplement the Brazilian figures. Over the last few years, the US technology market has been defined by a strong propensity for lighter machinery for which Italy is widely recognised, not just in the stone industry. However, over the last two years the trend was on the decrease for that item as well, while problems seem to have grown for other products too.

The last important country that is still negative is India.

Here figures are on the decrease, and we know that competition on the Italian market sees Italy vie with China and, on some products, with Germany. The Italian share is on the wane, although with some fluctuations, especially in primary Cutting machines. In particular 2009 was a difficult year, which also saw Indian exports of stone materials decline significantly, and not just for blocks: for example there was a -12.7% in finished granite, in terms of volume, something that clearly did not help support the Italian technology imports.

Also slightly but still significantly decreasing, especially in terms of value, was the Egyptian market, which as we saw became our first general importer.



There is no single most important import for Egypt, even if the greatest growth was that of “line” machinery or secondary processing machines. An important place was maintained by both Machine tools and primary Cutting machines, and they basically confirmed their role despite a slight drop.

The same applies to Algeria, with the non-negligible difference that this was still a growing market, even in 2009, and in all product types.



Similar trends, with some fluctuations but basically holding on and actually with good prospects even for the last two countries: China and Saudi Arabia. Both countries were good importers of Italian technology, although with some fluctuations and uncertainties caused by different reasons. The first country, China, became increasingly independent in the manufacture of technology, even if not in the same way for all products. However, apart from the figures, the expectation that China will grow as a competitor as well as a consumer is now a fact, which we must keep in mind and which the Italian industry will increasingly have to defend itself against in the near future.

The same cannot be said of Saudi Arabia, where trends were steadier and more positive for our exports. Compared with 2009, this trend saw it surpass China as well in terms of total Italian exports, and, despite a slight drop in primary Cutting machines, the overall balance remained widely positive compared with 2008.

All things considered, compared to the previous year, 2009 was a year of decline, and after all it was very unlikely for it to be otherwise. It reflected the general difficulty that the stone industry experienced on a global scale in 2009. However, it should be noted that a generally negative balance contains many sound, positive facts that make room for a recovery, which is not only possible but which is actually already taking place in several markets. It won’t be easy to consolidate and above all to expand it, because competition is now fierce, even in this field, which will require more and more investments in research and innovation as well as large investments in highly-skilled, creative human resources. But these are all “factors” that Italy has, and it only needs to make the most of them and share them better with more players and industries.

In stormy times, keeping a clear head and engaging in consistent analyses is always fairly hard, even if there has been much talk about the deep uncertainty of the future and the inadequacy of scientific theories in showing us the most effective exit strategies. A statement, which is now almost a prophecy, made by a former director of the Geneva-based international agency UNCTAD comes to mind: storms, he said in the late Eighties, are bound to stay on as a permanent factor in the international economic and political scenario for a long time yet. And indeed over the next decades there’s been no end of bubbles, in a crescendo of episodes that do prove him right. Even 2009, and these early months of 2010, are set in the midst of continuing uncertainty and unrest, which seem to question some established and sometimes even fundamental principles of economic and political theory, as well as leaving deep and quite realistic marks. A few months ago, in October 2009, the Bard College, near New York, hosted a meeting of selected experts on the contributions that Hanna Arendt’s reflections, in particular her writings on imperialism, could offer to the understanding of the crisis. Quite a surprising topic to be addressed by economists, but the outcome was even more surprising. The German scholar’s reflections on the history of Europe in the early 1900s point, even back then, to the birth of what we now call the “moral hazard”, as she said that early on, in the last century, “for the first time, investment of power did not pave the way for investment of money, but export of power followed meekly in the train of exported money”. Arendt added that “the recklessness that had prevailed in private life….. was about to be elevated to the one publicly honoured political principle”, and this resembles very closely the principles of the banks being too big to fail, to save them from their own mistakes and moral gambling some modern states, even very powerful ones, had to take action and get up to their neck in debts. Of course, historical similarities are always hazardous, but one must learn from History. And saying this to comment on the scenario which the stone industry too found itself surrounded by and in which it still moves, like any other, we are left with the basic fact of a productive sector which has suffered the consequences of events it had no influence over and which was obliged to develop its own recovery and exit strategies to survive. It is managing well enough, with major changes in all respects and even, in a fairly painful way, for many of its players.

We have seen that, over the last two years, the overall “figures” of the international trade of marble and granite have decreased, and as regards technology very few countries have kept on buying. 2010 seems to have taken a turn for the better, as it has shown some signs of recovery, especially in some traditional and profitable markets, which are beginning to come out of the general crisis they have been suffering. But the general prospects that the latest events, especially those of Europe, are now building are not too heartening, and it will take some time before we can say the night is over, once and for all, and that a new season of expansion and development is beginning for the stone industry too.
After all, we must keep in mind that in the last decade the industry’s development has been quite quick, and that the scenario of producers and consumers it has drawn is quite different from that of the last century, more widely ruled by the traditional players and the main great new element that is China. We have seen other countries become leading, active players on the international scene, countries that were comparatively alien to the role they are playing now, such as Egypt or Iran, and countries that have instead given a new lease of life to the role they used to play before by becoming more independent and the free makers of their own profiles, such as Brazil, or by reviving what they had done in the past, such as Turkey. In the last ten years, the first ten years of the new millennium, every new player has embarked on a process of emancipation within the industry, trying to make the most of their own resources, partly using outsourced technology and international aids when deemed appropriate. And new or traditional technology has played a non-negligible part in this process, sometimes becoming not only a practical tool but also an activity sharing the national or regional growth processes. For many industries, the production of technology is becoming something that often supports and becomes a sort of natural completion of the core industry, at least at some level, for a smoother, more straightforward and above all a more complete development of the whole production chain. Even in the stone industry, we have seen some remarkable examples which still follow the same evolutionary course, from China to Turkey, or India that is always watchful and ready to seize any opportunity that may arise. According to many economists and theorists of industrial development, this model is designed so that it is a more intensive sharing between industries that are seemingly distant in terms of productive organisation and specialisation which leads to the development of a different approach to economic progress and to the building of crisis response strategies. According to these scholars, we should think not so much of competitive and growth factors, but rather of shared trends and shared scopes and strategies, so as to develop new ways of looking at and responding to extreme challenges. Interesting hints for the development of theories that, even in our industry and in an integral production chain, might find cues for reflection and experimentation that might help devise alternative strategies for a rebirth of the industry after a “cold” season.

Uses of stone materials have become more intensive in the new millennium and they have also increasingly come to rely on new processing technology as well as finishing or operational technology that has helped increase their applications and make them, above all, a bit easier: from nanotechnology to production monitoring techniques or the new applications of chemistry and electronics. But this last year has been affected by the lower spending power of some traditional buyer markets, which has taken its toll on the exports of many producers and on the final balances. So far, we have not only looked into who has spent less and how, but also what producers and what national stone industries have been damaged by this. But signs of a possible return to intensive consumption levels, hopefully, are everywhere, widespread, important and significant. In the United States, symptoms of economic recovery and the revival of the building and property markets are getting stronger and stronger and, if nothing unexpected occurs, this potential improvement will steadily grow from this year on. And other important countries seem to be slowly but positively moving towards a year of a new expansion of jobs and building projects which would certainly involve stone materials as well.

With such potential prospects and, again, if nothing unexpected occurs or unless there is any crisis that might unfortunately nip any such process in the bud, we may say that it seems the stone world is a little divided between those who will be ready to start again as soon as these signs become serious openings, making the most of all the new that is being prepared, and those who will wait a little bit longer, maybe paying for some delay in setting out their alternative strategies or paying for a loss of competitiveness due to the loss of productive potential they may have experienced in the meantime. This is a risk that mainly concerns the more structured producers, those who were well established before the slowdown of 2009 and that, with the crisis, have lost something in their chain-like organisation, something that cannot be easily or smoothly remade or replaced. In some traditional regions, the last two years, and above all 2009, have seen a lockup in the turnover of businesses and jobs, with imaginable consequences on the ensuing productive and employment scenarios: a decreased general and individual ability to respond, and in some cases a loss of complexity in the local chain-like organisation, which does not mean a streamlined organisation but rather a potential impoverishment of the product ranges. This has happened even where the local system is getting stable, focussing on the more traditional, safer businesses, maybe supported by a system of external aids, such as for instance the credit system, which tends to prefer low-risk businesses at such times of systemic uncertainty. In other words, this response mechanism has been more accessible to those productive organisations that are more easily able to get out of the rough patches and seek refuge in those specialised businesses that were safer, even if less advanced or less complete in terms of their general productive profile. For instance, in some cases, this has meant closing ranks around the quarrying business, which in such circumstances is considered to be safer from economic fluctuations than the processing business, especially if the quarried materials are commercially “easy” or well known, even technically. But such choices have also meant an objective increase in problems for the other components of the chain, as regards which many have often wondered what might be needed to support its recovery and give it a new lease of life, especially when the market plays a weaker role. These are questions which the stone production industry asks itself but which, once again, when they lead to more general considerations, share the same areas of difficulty and cues for reflections as other productive industries, such as, for example, the potential role of the public sector at a time of revival or the role of local credit in the strengthening of the most excellent production chains or the weight that the so-called “technological trajectories” may have in the industrial development of more traditional trades. Of course these are no easy questions, mainly because they need real answers that are not easy to reckon with. We do know, though, as we often have often found in our surveys, that the stone system is generally not caught off guard by the crisis; we know that, even as early as the end of last year, it was perfectly aware, wherever the crisis was brewing, of what might have happened. And we have found that the responses and attitudes to the negativity that was beginning to appear are different, depending on the scenario in which the local stone companies are working. In other words, we have had the umpteenth positive confirmation that a company and an industry have different, sometimes very different, performance and a different response, depending on the productive system and the environment which surround them and above all depending on the restrictions they have to adhere to and the opportunities they may seize. And as regards some countries, even some very important countries, and our industry as a whole, we know a lot about the distribution of their income but little about the set of implicit and explicit guarantees the companies need to work and that protects them from risks and binds them to adhere to their external commitments. This one too is an asymmetry of knowledge that translates into an asymmetry in the final competition, because the more we know about the others, the better we stand up to them, and then we either cooperate or we compete.

The next few months will tell us a lot about the scenario that will take shape in the near future: just over these last few days, the international authorities and economic players are focussing on European unity, on the economic strength of some big countries and entire communities. Nobody has the power to read the crystal ball of what is in store for us and our children, but we still have a duty to try, as far as we can, to shed light on and learn more about what is happening. This is what we have hopefully done, all these years, through our small contributions in surveys and figures.

All data in italics are estimates
*: India: data referred only to marble and granite

Tav. C1 TOTAL MARBLE -EXPORT

Tav. C2 TOTAL GRANITE - EXPORT

Tav. C3 - TOTAL RAW MATERIALS - EXPORT

Tav. C4 - TOTAL PROCESSED MATERIALS, BLOCKS EQUIVALENT - EXPORT