The Italian natural stone industry had a mixed performance in 2023. Exports of raw stone held steady despite a record year in 2022, while exports of finished products and processing equipment saw moderate declines.
In 2023, Italian exports of “raw materials” decreased by only 1% in value compared to 2022, which, let’s remember, had been a record year.
China remains the top buyer and increases its imports by 2.7%, while India, in second place, increases its imports from Italy by 7.8%.
Egypt remains in third place in the import of raw materials (- 13.1%), ahead of Germany (- 12.5%), United States (- 20.7%), France (- 17.6%), Algeria (- 14.4%), Switzerland (- 13.8%), Saudi Arabia (+ 48.3%) and Australia (+ 37.7%).
In this period, China imported about 43.7% of all Italian raw materials export and about 3.3 times quantities imported from India.
Acceptable results in 2023 for our sector, considering the international situation, also for Italian export of slabs and finished natural stones.
In the 2023, the value of Italian exports of slabs and finished products decreased by 4.5% compared to 2022, which, let’s remember, had been a record year.
Exports of these products to the United States (1) decreased by 7.1%, in Germany (2) by 6.7%, in Switzerland (4) by 2%, in Saudi Arabia (6) by 9.4%, in Austria (8) by 12.2% while they increased in France (3) by 5.5%, in the United Arab Emirates (5) by 24.2%, in the United Kingdom (7) by 0.6%. in Australia (9) by 1.5% and in Morocco (10) by 14.4%.
It’s important to remember that in the 2023, the Italian export of slabs and finished products in the top ten Buyer Countries was about 81.8% of the total exported of these products, in this period (1,657 billion euros). Italian exports to the United States (1) were about 3.4 times the exports to Germany (2) and over 4.4 times the exports to France (3).
In the 2023, the value of Italian exports of machines, tools and other equipment for the processing of natural stone increased by 0.2% compared to 2022, which, let’s remember, had been a record year.
If we consider the “top ten” of the main buyers of Italian machinery and equipment, our sales decreased in the United States by 15.1% (1), in Spain 0.4% (2), in Germany by 7.7% (5), in India by 10% (6), in France by 13.1% (7), in Poland by 13.8% (8) and in the United Kingdom by 11% (9) while they increased in Turkey by 27.3% (3), in Canada by 26.9% (4) and in Portugal by 1.9% (10).
Outside the ranking of the top ten countries investing in Italian technology is Brazil (12), which in terms of investment in Italian machinery and equipment in this period was overtaken by Algeria (11).
It’s important to remember that in the 2023, the United States imported about 15.6% of all Italian exports of machines, tools and other equipment for the processing of natural stone and about 2.6 times quantities imported from Spain (2).
Source: Markets Trends Analysis Office CONFINDUSTRIA MARMOMACCHINE Association
