The sector’s organization Centrorochas, led by foreign trade companies themselves, reached impressive results since it started cooperation with the governmental export promotor, APEXBrasil
In 2021, Brazil posted an all-time record in ornamental stone exports, topping pre-pandemic levels: Revenue reached US-$ 1.34 billion; 2.4 million tons were exported to 132 countries in five continents, up 35.5% year on year. In 2022, from January to September, the country’s stone exports again reached an all-time high by jumping over 1 billion US-$ in those nine months. Peter Becker from Stone-Ideas.com spoke with Fábio Cruz, Vice President of Centrorochas (Centro Brasileiro dos Exportadores de Rochas Ornamentais), a nationwide organization where companies themselves decide over spending governmental funding to increase exportation.
Stone-Ideas.com: Please give us some details about the export data.
Fábio Cruz: From January to September 2022, Brazilian exports increased by 8.5% compared to the previous year in value. In 2022, 76.6% of exports were manufactured stones, and 26.4% were raw materials. The raw materials exported, mostly blocks, grew 20.4% compared to the previous year, which includes China as the main destination with approximately 57% of all exports made by Brazil in this method, followed by Italy with a share of 32%.
China increased its imports of Brazilian stones by 21.7% in 2022 compared to 2021, while Italy increased by 23.3%. For manufactured materials, 2022 brought an increase by 5.2%, highlighting Brazilian exports to the USA (increase by 1.7%) and Mexico (increase by 21.3%).
Stone-Ideas.com: Quartzites played a major role in stone exports, as is said on your webpage.
Fábio Cruz: Quartzites played a key role for the accumulated result of the sector in 2022, since it represents the large amount exported by SH6 680299.
To put it into context, this product represented approximately 29% in dollar terms of all the materials we exported to the world. For the US market, the increase was $44 million compared to 2021, accumulating a 22% evolution.
Despite an increase in exports this year (in value) of 8.5%, the exported weight fell by 3.2%. This can be explained by the increase in exports of products with higher added value, mainly quartzite.
These results are the result of Brazil’s efforts, through Centrorochas in partnership with ApexBrasil, executing the actions of the sectorial project “It’s Natural – Brazilian Natural Stone“, to promote the potential and geodiversity of Brazilian stones, especially quartzite, which are recognized for their beauty and unique technical characteristics.
Stone-Ideas.com: which export numbers do you expect until the end of 2022?
Fábio Cruz: The expectation, considering the market movement and assuming the premises of permanence of the observed trend, is to reach close to 1.4 billion dollars, but some global recessionary movements may directly impact this forecast.
We are optimistic that the results of the sector will remain positive in 2022, but we are following the unfolding of the conflict in Ukraine, the developments in the American economy, which impacts the granting of credit, civil construction, and other issues that we believe can directly impact the results to be achieved.
