The 2009 Import and Export Market for Building and Monumental Stone in Belgium

On the demand side, exporters and strategic planners focusing on building and monumental stone in Belgium face a number of questions. Which countries are supplying building and monumental stone to Belgium? How important is Belgium compared to others in terms of the entire global and regional market? How much do the imports of building and monumental stone vary from one country of origin to another in Belgium? On the supply side, Belgium also exports building and monumental stone. Which countries receive the most exports from Belgium? How are these exports concentrated across buyers? What is the value of these exports and which countries are the largest buyers? This report was created for strategic planners, international marketing executives and import/export managers who are concerned with the market for building and monumental stone in Belgium. With the globalization of this market, managers can no longer be contented with a local view. Nor can managers be contented with out-of-date statistics which appear several years after the fact. I have developed a methodology, based on macroeconomic and trade models, to estimate the market for building and monumental stone for those countries serving Belgium via exports, or supplying from Belgium via imports. It does so for the current year based on a variety of key historical indicators and econometric models. In what follows, Chapter 2 begins by summarizing where Belgium fits into the world market for imported and exported building and monumental stone. The total level of imports and exports on a worldwide basis, and those for Belgium in particular, is estimated using a model which aggregates across over 150 key country markets and projects these to the current year. From there, each country represents a percent of the world market. This market is served from a number of competitive countries of origin. Based on both demand- and supply-side dynamics, market shares by country of