China suffers fall in tile exports

While remaining well ahead of other ceramic tile exporter countries, in 2014 China suffered its first setback in exports.

After 10 years of uninterrupted growth culminating in record exports of 1,095 million sq.m in 2013, volumes dropped by 2.9% last year to 1,063 million sq.m (a reduction of 32 million sq.m).

The breakdown of Chinese exports by large geographical areas shows that sales increased only in Africa and Oceania (by 5.7% and 12.7%, respectively).

China suffered a decline in exports to all other areas of the world, including Asia where they fell for the second year running (-2.6% in 2013 and -3% in 2014) to reach 552.6 million sq.m, 52% of total Chinese exports.

Sales also declined sharply in South America (99.8 million sq.m, -22.8%), largely due to the downturn in Brazil (-46%), while exports to North America remained virtually stable at 82.1 million sq.m (-0.8%) in spite of the fall in sales in the United States (46.8 million sq.m, -2.8%).

As for Europe, Chinese exports not only fell for the fourth year running in EU markets (24.5 million sq.m, -7.7%) but also suffered the first decline in non-EU Europe (22.1 million sq.m, -10.8%).