Ornamental rocks: market, challenges and perspectives

This paper aimed to analyze the situation of the ornamental rocks in Brazil and in the world. Moreover, it has as an objective to provide a better understanding regards the presence of Radon in these products, its effects to the human health, and the existent legislations. It is known that ornamental rocks sector holds a minor amount of transactions in comparison with ferrous ores. However, in contrast with other minerals market, ornamental rocks present a rising trend despite the financial crisis. In current days, the most important players in this type of business are United States and China. Both nations appear as the main importers, exporters and producers. Nations such as Brazil, India and Turkey have increased their production and exportation along the last years and therefore increasing their relevance in this business. In order to improve their capacity of exportation countries will have to be aware about new factors like Radon levels in their products. The reason for that is in the last few years many countries in Europe and North America that are importers of ornamental rocks have legislation to control levels of natural radioactivity in rocks such as granite. In this paper, it was elaborated a comparison between the legislations in different countries and it was also made an economic analysis according to existents economic reports of the ornamental rocks industry. In addition, an interesting point approached was related to the Branding which is a technique to help increase the value of ornamental stones in the market. In brief, it was approached in this paper the economic situation of ornamental rocks sector, legislations regards the presence of Radon and also the Branding technique to increase the value of ornamental rocks. (author)