Mid-Year 2008 Stone Imports: New Order
If the first six months of 2008’s U.S. dimensional-stone imports translated into an aviation weather report for the rest of the year, it’d be three words: foggy, ceiling uncertain.
January through June turned out to be a period like no other in the past decade, as the monthly reports seemed to defy trends with fluctuating volumes and values. Even the overlay of previous years’ data showed few, if any matches.
That’s why, unlike last year, there won’t be any predictions about how the stone import markets will settle in December. The stone flow coming into the United States will likely be influenced by more than demand; there’s the world economy, wavering currency-exchange rates and the need for some exporting countries to keep moving exports at the expense of profit margins.
That foggy weather is unlikely to worsen enough to cause people to go crashing into mountains – but it’ll make it tough to find and keep your bearings.
TOSS THE TRENDS
Normally, after using some play on aviation terms, journalists often bring in the amusement-park analogy of a rollercoaster ride to describe the rise-and-fall in dynamic markets. However, while rollercoasters may provide some thrills, the rides smooth out at the end.
Dimensional-stone imports for first-half 2008, though, look a lot more like a couple of turns at the Tilt-A-Whirl. The flow of stone seems to be moving with no clear sense of direction, and the end result leaves everyone a little woozy.
Some of that unsteadiness will likely come from the barrage of numbers that follows. Yes, it’s tough to keep up with this, but the statistics also illustrate the uncertainty of where dimensional-stone imports – which make up at least 80 percent (and likely much more) of U.S. total use – are going for the rest of the year.
Take the largest category: worked granite. The slabs and tiles coming into the United States from granite’s Big Four – Brazil, China, India and Italy – fueled the phenomenal growth of the U.S. dimensional-stone trade in the late 1990s and the early 2000s. While the growth cooled slightly in mid-decade, imports still grew by double-digit rates.
First-half 2008 also shows some double-digit changes … but none are up. The customs value (and we’ll call this just value from now on) for worked granite for January-June this year totaled $603.59 million. That’s a decline of 13.93 percent from the same period last year.
All of the Big Four fell behind first-half 2007, with Brazil dropping 18.41 percent with its $205.4 million to lead the sector. China placed second at $145.48 million, although its first-half values declined by only 4.17 percent from first-half 2007. Italy and India also saw mixed results, with first-half import values dropping by 16.08 percent and 8.08 percent, respectively.
