StatWatch: April 2010
Travertine Value
Total: $19.2 million (-3.4%)
Sector leader: Turkey @ $12.2 million (no change)
Backfill: OK, Turkey’s totals didn’t match to the penny; this April’s tally is $2,000 less than the same month last year, but for trendwatchers it’s a tie. Major declines came with Italy (-19.5%) and China (-49.9%). Mideast exporters continue a yo-yo act from April 2009; the United Arab Emirates moved up 28.7%, while Israel sank by 87.8%.
Travertine Volume
Total: 40,398 metric tons (0.8%)
Sector leader: Turkey @ 32,786 metric tons (13.8%)
Backfill: Turkey picks up the slack in tonnage; it accounted for 4/5ths of all travertine coming through U.S. ports-of-entry in April 2010. Mexico sent 5,178 metric tons across the border, up 17.2% from April 2009. China’s 400 metric tons, meanwhile, exhibits a painful 84.8% plunge.
Other Calcareous Value
Total: $7.8 million (-19.0%)
Sector leader: Italy @ $1.3 million (27.9%)
Backfill: Don’t flay Italy for the stone’s poor showing this April, as it shows continued improvement in 2010. China, France and Spain combine to make up $1.6 million of the $1.8 million decline in total other calcareous imports from April 2009.
Slate Value
Total: $4.3 million (-20.3%)
Sector leader: India @ $2.1 million (1.9%)
Backfill: Slate’s becoming less of a two-horse race as India pulls away, posting a small-but-something 1.9% gain from April 2009. China’s $1.5 million is a 37.6% drop from the previous April. Third-place Brazil dropped by 16.6%; its total slate value of $319,166 for the month shows the huge gap between the top two exporters and everyone else.
©2010 Western Business Media Inc.
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