The United Kingdom is known to be one of the biggest importers of natural stones including marble, granite, and others. As the UK and European Union decided to part their ways and closed the book on almost half a century of close negotiations on Jan 31. Due to which various industry sectors got impacted and the natural stone industry is no exception. Now, let’s find out how it is going to impact the import of marble and other stones in the UK and how a marble supplier would need to act further. 

What’s BREXIT?

The liberty to live and work between the UK and the EU came to an end, and in 2021, UK nationals will require a visa to make their stay in the EU more than 90 days in a 180-day time frame. As UK is no longer a part of the EU, the UK is free to define its trade policy and find new deals with other countries. This entire change in the functioning is known as BREXIT.

Northern Ireland will cease to follow many of the EU’s guidelines in order to avert an inurement of its border with the Republic of Ireland. This surely means that fresh checks will be imposed on goods entering Northern Ireland other than the UK.

How Brexit has been affecting the marble imports in the UK

It would be interesting to know how this Brexit deal would impact the imports of natural stones including marble.

According to the data fetched from HM Revenue & Customs, the industry noticed a rise in the value of stone imports in August 2016 after the Brexit vote, but to some level, this will show the upsurge in genuine prices being given as an outcome of the reduction in the pound following the survey. However, importers and their customers had already been doing major changes in their buying outlines due to the economic crisis of 2008, sourcing high quantities of lower price stone from other countries than Europe.

The worth of UK stone imports has witnessed a rising trend since 2012. There was some unwillingness about working on projects live towards the tail of 2015 and the first few months of 2016 as the ballot in the UK on exiting the European Union loomed. As the result was proclaimed that the UK was to leave the EU after the voting in 2016, sureness appears to have engulfed the market, even though the outcome was unforeseen by a majority of folks. Stone firms were quite engaged in the summer and autumn of 2016.

Image source – stonespecialist.com

According to a report released by the International Trade Centre and the National Statistical Institutes, the import of marble blocks and slabs attained a record high of over 38.7 million dollars since 2007 whereas their imports faced a downturn, summing up at 15.1 million dollars in 2017.

The following table shows the import data of marble blocks and slabs to the UK from the top 10 countries.

Image source – stonenews.eu

As depicted in the given table, in 2017 UK imported Marble Blocks & Slabs from France at a higher price per ton in comparison to 2016 by the remarkable +2,473%, from Turkey by +81,87%, from Italy by +42,78%, from China by +30,78%, from Portugal by +21,42%, from Egypt by +5,55%, from India by 4,83% and from Spain by 1,64%. On the opposing, UK imported at a reduced price per ton only from Greece by -7,52%. With respect to Norway, UK didn’t import any Marble Blocks & Slabs sourcing from Norway in 2016.

It is to be noted that UK imported almost half of the marble blocks and slabs from EU member countries except Italy.

Finished Marble Products

UK’s Finished Marble Products imports have been consistently declining over the last decade. Seemingly, from 2008 till 2017 the value and the number of imports were cut almost by half. However, the price per ton was steady at predominantly extreme levels. Between 2016 and 2017 UK imported Finished Marble Products at a higher price per ton by 5,4% though the import value got down by 11,68% while the number by 16,2%.

Image source – stonenews.eu

The HS codes (Harmonized System Codes) for marble products are shown below:

251511: Marble and travertine, crude or roughly trimmed

251512: Marble and travertine, merely cut, by sawing or otherwise, into blocks or slabs of a square or rectangular shape

251520: Ecaussine and other calcareous monumental or building stone of an apparent specific gravity of >= 2,5, and alabaster, whether or not roughly trimmed or merely cut, by sawing or otherwise, into blocks or slabs of a square or rectangular shape (excluding in the form of granules, chippings or powder, and marble and travertine)

680221: Marble, travertine and alabaster articles thereof, simply cut or sawn, with a flat or even surface (excluding with a completely or partly planed, sand-dressed, coarsely or finely ground or polished surface, tiles, cubes and similar articles of subheading 6802,10, setts, curbstones and flagstones)

680291: Marble, travertine, and alabaster, in any form (excluding tiles, cubes and similar articles of subheading 6802.10, imitation jewelry, clocks, lamps, and lighting fittings and parts thereof, buttons, original sculptures and statuary, setts, curbstones, and flagstones)

Source: ITC

With most stone intended for the UK emerging from China and India and already on the route by the time lockdown in the UK was imposed, there was a slight pause between the beginning of the first lockdown towards the end of March and the reduction in stone coming at the docks. By the end of 2020, imports were fast, of their 2019 figure. Brexit perhaps played a role in that. When the UK exited the European Union at the beginning of 2020, there was quite an uncertainty about what it would define and there was a general thought that it could lead to a drop in sales. As it came out, whatever the influence of Brexit might have been, it was waded in the impression of the Covid-19 pandemic, which encountered the biggest drop in UK GDP since the ‘Great Freeze’ in the year 1709.

Construction was badly hurt. It witnessed the biggest fall of any industry by a substantial margin, as per the Office for National Statistics. For stone and marble suppliers, it is always a big thing to know how Brexit would shape the marble imports in the UK.  

On the other side, it faced the most outstanding recovery and by the end of the year, it regained its last position which was at the beginning of the year, while the other sectors were still trailing behind.

As far as imports are concerned, stone imports performed better, according to HMRC (HM Revenue & Customs).

Image source – stonespecialist.com

It is too early to determine the actual impact of Brexit on Marble imports in the UK. The government has invested a huge sum of money in assisting industries to survive the influence of various events, which has helped to diminish the impact for now, although an extra 700,000 folks, mostly younger adults, have become jobless. More jobs may go in vain when the government terminates the furlough system that has kept people on a minimum of 80% of the fully salary when they are not at work.