Import Trends 2003: Movin’ On Up

April 5, 2004

Not that any particular stone suffered in demand last year – stone continued on its record pace in usage, as indicated by the flow of imports. Granite, however, topped them all, with $700-million-plus entering the United States … and doubling the value of the stone imported five years ago.
The value attached to imported stone – granite or otherwise – isn’t the whole story, however. The actual volume of stone coming here is growing at an even faster rate than the value, causing some wild variances in prices and plenty of value for fabricators and consumers.
Data from the U.S. Department of Commerce, the U.S. Treasury and the U.S. International Trade Commission provide an interesting snapshot of the stone industry’s position. Imports make up more than 80 percent of dimensional stone used in this country,

GRANITE
The growth in granite use comes as no surprise to any fabricator watching stone go through the shop, but import figures give some definition to current demand.
U.S. granite imports reached a customs value of $731.2 million last year, showing a 28.2-percent increase from 2002. The latest figure is in line with the record pace for granite in the past five years; import values increased by almost 120 percent from 1999.
The biggest exporter to the United States – as far as value of shipments – is Italy, with $237.3 million. Brazil is second at $182.2 million; India is third at $107.4 million; China places fourth at $79.4 million; and Canada rounds out the top five at $50.8 million.
Italy also shows a respectable growth in granite import value from 2002-2003 at 18.3 percent. However, it’s nowhere near China’s annual value growth rate in granite of 53 percent; Brazil posted a 40.2-percent hike in value, and India showed a 35-percent leap.
The value assigned at the docks and other ports-of-entry tell only part of the story with U.S. stone imports. With granite – as well as other stones – the real growth is in the actual amount of stone coming into the country.
With the main part of the market – granite cut stone and slabs – Brazil is the top importer in volume, with the 340,685 metric tons coming into the country representing a 65.3-percent growth rate from 2002. Italy places second at 289,297 metric tons (up 7.8 percent from 2002 import levels).
India’s 274,283 metric tons of cut-stone/slab granite makes it the third-highest country in import volume. China, meanwhile, ranks fourth for 2003 at 152,633 metric tons.
If it’s going to be granite in the United States, the choice is likely going to be from Brazil, Italy, India or China. In 2003, these top four exporters accounted for 87.3 percent all cut-stone/slab granite brought into this country.
When comparing customs values to actual import tonnage, it’s apparent that Italian granite comes at a high premium price: $817 per average metric ton in 2003. China’s value/metric-ton average, at $514, shows a major discount, but it’s not the lowest; India is the value leader at $390.
Brazil, as the volume leader, shows a comparable value/metric-ton average at $530 last year. (The only other country to show a price-per-ton average of less than $500 among the top 10 importing countries, incidentally, is South Africa at $405.)

MARBLE
Compared to granite, marble looks a lot like the kid brother in U.S. stone imports last year – but it’s no small fry at a total customs value of $305.4 million, up 13.2 percent from 2002 levels.
Italy is the clear leader in marble import values at $135.1 million for 2003, far outpacing second-place Spain at $36.8 million. Rounding out the top five are Turkey ($31.9 million), China ($24.9 million) and Mexico ($18.2 million).
The biggest growth in marble import values came with Turkey’s 90.6-percent leap from 2002. Spain, meanwhile, boosted the value of its marble to the United States by 15.2 percent, and China moved up the value ladder by 13.8 percent.
Italy went the other way; its U.S. marble-import value dropped by 5.6 percent. Mexico managed to keep on the positive side on import values here, but only by 3.3 percent.
The value decline in Italian-marble imports to the United States is also reflected in the volume of cut-stone/slab marble brought into this country; the 56,536 metric tons received in 2003 showed a 4.1-percent decline from the previous year. U.S. imports of Turkish marble also dropped last year, with the 7,582 metric tons shipped representing a 37.9-percent decrease.
The biggest increase among top marble exporters to the United States came with Mexico; its 8,795 metric tons last year notched a 152.7-percent jump from 2002. Spain and China increased metric-ton volume in 2003 from the preceding year by 6.5 percent and 4.9 percent, respectively.
Italy remains the leader in value per imported metric ton in 2003, with a premium average of $1,142 rising far above Spain’s $769 and Turkey’s $746. (Turkey actually placed sixth in U.S. marble-import volume last year; fifth place went to Greece with 7,603 metric tons at a per-ton value average of $746.)
The $511 per metric-ton/value from China ends up, like granite, being lower than most major importers … but it’s not the lowest. Mexico offers the greatest value per metric ton at $446.

TRAVERTINE
Turkey’s dominance in travertine is overwhelming; the $142.5 million in 2003 customs value of the stone in cut/slab format represents 51.2 percent of the U.S. import market for the stone. And, last year’s import value shows a 39.4-percent increase from 2002.
Mexico posts the second-highest value in 2003 U.S. travertine imports at $63.2 million (up 6.3 percent from the previous year), while Italy places third at $51.7 million (down 7.1 percent from 2002). Peru is fourth at $10.6 million, with an impressive growth rate of 52.8 percent from 2002; Spain, at $1.2 million, is the only other country to import more than $1 million travertine to the United States.
Turkey also towers over other countries in travertine import volumes, with the 298,702 metrics tons shipped to the United States far outpacing Italy’s 84,848 tons. Travertine imports from Mexico ranked third at 71,753 metric tons, while Peru’s U.S. output amounted to 12,715 metric tons.
Not surprisingly, the large amount of travertine shipped also gives Turkey the lowest import value per metric ton for 2003 at an average of $476. (Among the top 10 importers, only two showed lower average per-metric-ton values than Turkey: Spain at $448 and Argentina at $418 at vastly lower volumes.)
Mexico ranked as the highest of the large importers with value per-metric-ton with U.S. travertine imports at $881, followed by Peru at $839. Italy struck a balance in value per metric ton for travertine in 2003, with U.S. imports averaging $610 per metric ton.

THE REST
Import demand for other calcareous stone – including limestone and alabaster – remained flat in 2003, with the $224.4 in U.S. import value representing only a 2.7-percent increase from 2003. Italy remains the leader in import values at $56 million, followed closely by Spain at 54.2 million. France is third at $19 million; China ranks fourth at $18.1 million; and Mexico rounds out the top five at $13.7 million.
In the classification of “other stone” (such as sandstone), U.S. import values added up to $204.9 million last year, up 11.1 percent from 2002. Italy again takes the top spot with $56.9 million in import values, followed by India at $35.7 million; Brazil at $29.4 million; Canada at $26.7 million; and China at $19.1 million.
The demand market for slate generated $78.1 million in U.S. imports in 2003, showing a 5.8-percent increase from 2002. India led all imports with $31.5 million in slate last year; China shipped $22.4 million to take second place; Brazil ranked third at $9.7 million; and Italy claimed fourth with $8.1 million in import value.

OBSERVATIONS
• Brazil looks to be the new granite powerhouse in the U.S. market. Not only does it lead in the amount of granite brought into this country; it tripled its tonnage bound for the United States during the past five years.
• India may be emerging as the value leader in granite imports, showing full recovery from what appears to be a one-year dip in trade during 2002. It could easily be the number-two importer of stone to the United States in 2004.
• The effect of stone from China may have been overrated in the past few years; its best showing in actual tonnage for any stone is third-place (in marble) and is rarely the least-expensive stone loaded onto U.S. docks. The country showed some of the strongest market growth in granite and marble, however, and may become a much-stronger presence in the next few years.
• Italy faces a slow, continual decline of overall stone exports to the United States as more stone is worked in countries of quarrying origin … although Italy’s well-earned reputation for quality and stone selection justifies a premium price in the market. The greater threat to Italy is the widening gap between the euro and the U.S. dollar, which artificially inflates prices and makes stone from non-euro countries (Brazil, India, Turkey, China and Mexico, among others) much, much more attractive.
Data for this article, and for accompanying charts, is derived from information reported by the U.S. Department of Commerce, the U.S. Treasury and the U.S. International Trade Commission. All analysis is made using comparable data. “Cut stone/slab” data excludes crude/roughly trimmed stone comprised of marble/travertine, granite or other categories where volume measurement is in cubic meters instead of metric tons. Marble/travertine crude/roughly trimmed stone data is not included in value summaries, since the two stones are not delineated in the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States (2002) (Revision 2).