After a 2021 of sustained growth (up 20.5% in value from 2020), last year Turkey’s natural stone exports confirmed a full recoup of pre-pandemic levels, with sales worth more than $US 2 billion. This was revealed in statistics issued by the Istanbul office of ICE-Agency, taken from Turkstat data, which showed that in 2022 Turkey’s foreign sales of stone materials remained on the excellent levels of the previous year (+0.17%), reaching worth of $US 2,092.7 million.
Analyzing the composition of Turkey’s stone exports shows that again in 2022 – after a 23% downturn in 2021 – there was a decrease in sales of raw materials, minus 17% (for $US 671.5 million) mainly because of a heavy decrease (-32%, for 416 million) in orders from China – which bought 62% of the blocks extracted in Turkey – while there was an upturn in exports to India (+43% for 132.5 million) and Italy (+25% for 15.5 million).
On the other hand there was good growth in exports of finished and semi-finished stone products, up 11% in 2022 for total worth of $US 1.421 million. The top market was still the United States, with imports worth 462 million – in line with the 2021 figure and accounting for 32.5% of the country’s total finished stone exports – followed by France with 95.3 million (-2%) and Saudi Arabia (+270% with 79.5 million).
Worth mentioning is that in 2022, according to CONFINDUSTRIA MARMOMACCHINE Studies Center data, Turkey rose to sixth place among buyers of stone-working machinery and equipment Made in Italy, with imports worth 50.5 million euros (+48.4%).
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