Diffucult though the situation in the foreign trade in 2008, the stone industry took intensive restructuring by fully adopting the national policy.  The trade volume amounted to nearly us$5.488 billion, up 17.14%, of which us$3.943 billion was from exports, up 15.06%, and us$1.545 billion from imports, up 22.72%.

  The statistics show that the average increase of the stone industry import and export is higher than other construction industry. However, it also tells that there are obvious adjustment of the import structure and the furture processing of the domestic marble has been slowed down.

  The increase of the stone industry has promoted the development of the relative industries stably and provides various decoration materials for the construction industry including some rare materials.

  For many years, our mainly imports are marble blocks, slabs and granite blocks. In 2008, there was a great increase in the slab import and this would lead to the impressive adjustment of the stone industry.