EU Stone Sector: Analysis and Evolution

Summary – The International stone market grows, in terms of uses, production and exchanges, but the EU industry fails matching the trend. The competition from extra EU products and ceramics is efficient and explains the quarry production difficulties of EU producers. The main problems refer to finished products sales. In general, it is possible to refer the decrease of the EU stone industry’s competitiveness to missing ‘added value’, necessary for valorising more expensive products. A correct strategy calls for a policy of investment in general and for research investment in particular. In fact, the stone industry is “non-advanced” technologically speaking, given the size of companies and its conservative attitude. A comparison with the main competitor, ceramics industry, shows immediately the difference. An efficient stone product qualification, certification and valorisation are still far. For instance, the valorisation of marketing suffers the missing of an updated approach, able to match the market needs. As the civil work industry declares in its E-core analysis on the development, stone marketing suffers the very low qualification and automation. Today the finished product selection is still hand-made and a very low guarantee is given: even the “CE” marking and the “Pietra Naturale” marking actually cannot guarantee nor the origin nor the quality. However, possible actions are available, based on specific investments and able to value the stone product by an efficient qualification. This is the case of the automation of production final segment; of the quality certification PDO-like and of the e-business.