Very British: The natural stone market in England

Although natural Stone (http://g603.net) is a global product, there are large regional differences, even between the European countries. One example of this is the British natural Stone (http://g603.net) market, in which imports dominate. The domestic capacities for quarrying and (http://maplered.com) processing are too small to cover domestic demand (http://maplered.com) . The prices for imported raw blocks and (http://maplered.com) finished products are also considerably lower than for production in Great Britain itself.
Statistics for 2002 show that the some 10,000 tons of exported raw Material (http://g654.org) was much less than one tenth of imports. In the finished products segment, there were 341,000 tons of imported natural Stone (http://g603.net) goods against only 21,000 tons of exported goods.

The volume extracted from the English quarries is around 150,000 tons, which corresponds to a share of 0.7 per cent among European Stone (http://g603.net) producers.

Good growth opportunities are seen for domestic consumption. Many European manufacturers have already made good their losses on the German market through gains in Great Britain. The main potential for improvement is seen in increasing the natural Stone (http://g603.net) consumption per head of the population: This is only 0.15 square metres at present, compared with figures of 1.5 and (http://maplered.com) 1.1 square metres for Switzerland (http://maplered.com) and (http://maplered.com) Italy respectively. The growth of 1.5 per cent in the gross national product, which is above the European average, also means that a further increase can be expected.

Due to the large market share of finished products of slate, Spain with imports worth almost 47 million euro is currently England (http://maplered.com) ’s main supplier of natural Stone (http://g603.net) , followed by Italy with 42 million, China with 23 million and (http://maplered.com) India with 22 million. Norway reached almost 12 million in 2001 and (http://maplered.com) Germany exported natural Stone (http://g603.net) s worth some 5 million euro over the channel.
In general, a distinct increase in imports of finished products of Marble (http://www.lightemprador.com) is noticeable. The leader for finished products of Granite (http://tanbrown.org) - mainly graveStone (http://g603.net) s ?is India with an import share of 33 per cent, followed by Italy, which among British buyers is clearly losing market shares to India and (http://maplered.com) China.

The most important application for natural Stone (http://g603.net) in England (http://maplered.com) is structural building. Investments in the past years have increased strongly, especially in the private building sector, also accompanied by an appreciable growth in the share of natural Stone (http://g603.net) for exterior and (http://maplered.com) interior use, mainly for slate roofs and (http://maplered.com) for facades. Kitchen worktops and (http://maplered.com) washbasins of natural Stone (http://g603.net) are also increasing slightly, especially in middle-class homes, although laminates still hold a share of 80 per cent here. In the public sector there is also a noticeable trend towards natural Stone (http://g603.net) for floor covering or shopfitting.
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