Verona Comes to New York

NEW YORK – Sone of stone’s biggest names from Verona, Italy, made a transatlantic trek here this month as part of a promotion by Veronafiere-Marmomacc.

Click photo to enlargeThe new campaign – “We Speak Stone” – on May 16-17 in New York,featured ten of the most-important companies in the Veronese Stone District: Antolini, Bauce Bruno, Cereser Marmi, Formigari, Girasole Pietre Naturali, Montegrappa, La Ponte Marmi M&G, Marmi Scala, Domos and Testi Group.

The two-day event in New York included many meetings with some of the world’s most renowned architects, such as Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates (KPF) and VOA Architecture Associates, visits to the showrooms of distributors including Artistic Tile, Walker Zanger and Stone Source, as well as b2b meetings.

This was the debut for a broader project that will see the organization of other international stages accompanying companies to consolidated and emerging markets in the natural-stone field.

Marmomacc has for many years been recognized as an education provider by the American Association of Architects (AIA), In New York, it also proposed educational seminars in collaboration with Stone Trends International and Mapei US Corporation.

“The United States is a market we have followed up with great attention for many years, precisely to ensure more business and development opportunities for our companies in a vital geo-economic area for Italian marble-stone and technologies,” said Giovanni Mantovani, CEO & Director General of Veronafiere. “This initiative in New York is part of Marmomacc’s new strategy on international markets that seeks to promote dialogue between companies and key players in the sector, be they architects and designers or buyers and distributors of products and technologies.

“This matching and reporting task is back up by a new app that leverages Marmomacc’s web platform to maintain and develop business and contacts.”

The natural stone-technology industry continues to rank among sectors of excellence in Italian manufacturing, thanks to an overall value of exports coming to €3.2 billion in 2015.

The United States is once again among the most receptive markets precisely for production such high-added-value items as finished and semi-finished stone products and related technologies. Stone products posted an 24.7% increase in exports to the United States of 24.7% with €458 million euros in 2015, while technology sent stateside totaled nearly $142.

The relationship with the United States is very well established: during the last edition of Marmomacc in 2015, professional U.S. attendance improved by 23.7% (1,700 operators against 1,374 in 2014 and 1,075 in 2013).

The 51st edition of Marmomacc is scheduled in Verona from Sept. 28- Oct. 1.

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