In just a short time Russia has become not only a stable partner in terms of value, but also one that is growing year after year, even though it is not yet on a par with the major consumers. It is still an elitist consumer market but maybe this is exactly why it is a particularly valuable and sought-after market. Taken together the various factors point to a general picture of Italian exports divided into macro geographical regions that is gradually changing compared to previous years as we have tried to show in the table below regarding 2007. The same figures in Table 3, read in a percentage division rather than in percentage changes, show a close-up view of the small changes, including the differences between value and volume. Table 6: Italian Stone Exports, Percentage Division by Macro Geographical Regions, 2006-2007 Italy – All countries January - December 2006/2007
Exports/Percentage Divisions 2006
2007
q.tà
val.
q.tà
val.
European Union
31,0
34,0
28,4
33,6
Rest of Europe
9,4
10,7
10,4
11,8
Africa
12,1
3,7
16,0
5,1
North America
16,0
32,0
13,3
28,2
Central and South America
1,9
1,7
2,0
2,2
Middle East
13,3
8,3
12,0
8,6
Far East
15,5
8,2
17,4
9,0
Oceania
0,7
1,4
0,7
1,5
100,0
100,0
100,0
100,0
Total
Source: Istat; processing: IMM The decreasing importance of the European Union – albeit modest and compensated for by the other European countries and North America, which also includes Canada that is often undervalued, is accompanied by the increasing importance of Africa, especially North Africa, and to some extent the Far East too, although here value did not follow in the steps of volume. In terms of value the scenario remained more static with the only exception of the European countries outside the EU. Again, it is difficult to define what role the Euro played in this case too, although the following table may help to understand since it shows the individual countries that showed interesting and significant growth in the overall picture of the continent. In this case we have considered the total Italian exports to the individual markets for all types of products, including slates and chips, listing first the countries that show negative figures both in volume and value, then the countries with diverging situations between the two trend indicators and finally the countries with positive figures in everything, obviously limiting the countries to those with significant figures.
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