The Portuguese natural stone industry is one of the most important sectors among those based in the country’s mining activity and one of the major export sectors. The stones extracted are marbles, granites, limestones and schists, with more than 40% of the extracted material exported. Marble represents almost 60% of the total natural stones exports.
Stonenews.eu, after collecting, studying and editing the statistical data provided by Eurostat, is presenting Portugal’s marble export growth, both in value and quantity of exports, per month during 2019 compared with 2018.
The table above shows Portugal’s marble blocks and slabs exports growth as well as finished marble products exports growth both in value and quantity of exports, from January to December 2019, compared to last year’s same period of time.
There was a general increase in export value of Portugal’s marble blocks and slabs trade, with the exception of August and November. March holds the lead in export value increase – 73.64% more than March 2018, followed by February and July with 67.42% and 63.59% relatively. As for quantity of exports, the majority of the months followed a remarkable upward trend. February scored the massive 113.15% increase, followed by July with 100.89% increase. From October to December 2019, the quantity of marble blocks and slabs exports moved downwards.
Portugal’s finished marble products export growth from January to December 2019 had an overall decline in value of exports, though the rates were not so high. The greatest decrease was recorded in March (-18.53% compared to March 2018), followed closely by November (-17.24%). Mixed picture for quantity of exports, as half of the months had a remarkable positive growth while the rest of them slipped over. December closed with the greatest uprise (48.19%), followed by November (23.08%) and June (21.30%).
What is easily noticed in the above table is that although Portugal increased finished marble products quantity of exports, the relative value of exports fell, a fact that leads to a lower price per ton.
It is worth mentioning that during 2019, Portugal managed to export marble blocks and slabs of 39.14 million euros worth as well as finished marble products of 70.54 million euros.
*Due to consistent data flow, statistics may alter during the year