I M P OR TS
Australian imports of natural stone increase again in 2015 The value of natural stone imported into Australia has risen again for the third consecutive year. By Peter Halliday
T
he value of natural stone imported into Australia has risen again for the third consecutive year. The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) reported the total value for 2015 reached A$252,735,695.90, an increase of 19.2 percent over the 2014 figure, which itself was 21.2 percent increase over the 2013 figure, which was 7.8 percent up on 2012. The successive rises over the last three calendar years were the biggest increases since 2008. The total value figure as recorded by Australian Customs includes all international Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System (HS) classifications describing natural stone in either
a raw, crude or finished form. The 10-digit level of the classification system is also known as the Harmonized Tariff Item Statistical Code (HTISC), which describes stone in broad categories such as ‘Crude or Roughly Trimmed’ stone, Pebbles and Gravel (codes beginning with 25) as well as the biggest grouping, ‘Worked’ stone (codes beginning with 68), then breaks them down into common types. (A table of classification descriptions can be found later in the article in Figure 6.) Natural stone imported as ‘Crude or Roughly Trimmed’, meaning stone in a roughly quarried format before working or processing into
finished articles ready for consumer use, decreased by 9.7 percent. While ‘Crude or Roughly Trimmed’ stone only accounted for 2.4 percent of the total value of stone imports, the much higher value ‘Worked’ or processed categories (for example into tiles or slabs) rose by 20.1 percent over the previous year. Part of the increase in value was due to the deterioration in foreign exchange value of the Australian dollar against major trading currencies such as the Euro and US Dollar. Figure 1. illustrates the declining trend in the average monthly foreign exchange value of the Australian dollar (AUD) over the last two years. 32
Figure 1. Australian Dollar Exchange Rate 2013-2015
Source: Reserve Bank of Australia
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