From April 1st, EU will increase effort to inspect wooden packing of China stones exported to Europe. The inspection probability will reach 90%. The industry insider inferred that the increasing effort of inspection is no doubt that it means the cost will increase and the export market will be more serious.
“Now increasing the inspection probability is aimed at stopping China stones export to Europe.” Liu Yang said, who is a member of the office of Fujian Business Association of Stone Materials and Products Export Base.
Now, there are about 500 trading companies engaged in stone exporting, 10 stone export ports, and 10 specialized building materials markets in Fujian. Fujian has been the largest stone export base and a giant stone producing province in China.
Liu Yang said that the sliding down of orders from Europe has been the common situation and some companies even have no order in the busy season. Some companies originally only accept export orders now have to change to accepting 50% domestic orders in order to survive in the serious market.
“We have stopped to deliver to Europe market from early time.” said by Wang Sheng, the general manager of Yunfu WASEN Stone Co., Ltd. As his words, Europe market has a high demand on the inspection of stone and wooden packing. The export market is not easy to expand, added to the decreasing needs caused by debt crisis, so that WASEN export business to Europe almost stopped after the crisis.
According to Liu Yang words, although the stone producing and exporting industry in Fujian is mature, it is no doubt that the high price/performance ratio is the main competitive advantage of local stone export. The increasing of inspection probability will be sure to greatly weaken the advantage, especially in the special time on export with the cost of materials and labor increasing.
Shen Yulu, from the international cooperation department of China Stone Material Association, analyzed that the direct influence brought by increasing inspection probability is the extension of clear time. The efficiency reduction will make the cost of labor and material increase, so the originally depressed export situation will be more serious.
Liu Yang said they have considered and discussed how to face the situation of packing inspection probability, but till now, there is no good idea.
At present, Liu also said the Association hasn’t receive any news whether EU increases effort on packing to other stone export countries or not, so we don’t know whether the measure only for China stone export. Liu expected that for EU which has many high-end stone brands such as Italy, striking China stone products which have higher price/performance ratio and more market favor is a way to protect their industry in the period of weak market, but he can’t estimate the real fact.
