Sweden: Rising exports

Sweden has extracted between 300,000 and 400,000 t of natural stone a year in the past ten years ?C with a slightly rising tendency (Germany by comparison: 650,000 to 700,000 t). A large part of this stone is exported in the form of rough blocks and rough slabs.

A record amount of 277,000 t of raw material was exported in 2003, compared with imports of only 24,000 t of raw material. In the same year, 57,000 t of natural stone finished products were produced in the Swedish works themselves, distinctly less than in all years since 1994. This figure was previously an average of some 100,000 t. Swedish domestic consumption of natural stone reached its highest level of 170,000 t in 2000. According to these statistics, it has continuously declined since then; consumption in 2003 was still 112,000 t.

Compared with the nineties, the imports of finished goods to Sweden have more or less doubled in the first years of the new century. 68,000 t of natural stone finished products were imported in 2003, but only 13,000 t exported.