Today's homeowner has so many choices for their kitchen tops that it makes it so hard to choose.

As part of the Carrara Marmotec fair held from 19 to 22 May, 2010 held in the Italian city of Carrara, the exposition "Pezzi al Forte" was held. Nine young designers from Liguria (Italy) presented new prototypes of urban furniture in stone. The sample tries to make visible the perfect union between design, innovation and its practical usage.

“This is not Chopin who needs us, we are the ones that need to warm up with the splendor of his fame and genius” – said Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz, capital’s president, during the official opening  of the Fryderyk Chopin Museum in Warsaw. The building that honors the memory of the great composer is situated in the seventeenth-century Ostrogski Castle at Tamka Street. The works lasted several years.

The legal obstacles to be overcome before opening a natural stone quarry in Russia are explained. Investments will not be forthcoming without a resolution to these problems. Meanwhile the country´s stone processing factories have to rely to an increasing extent on imports. In this report*, I.O. Sinelnikov & O.B. Sinelnikov propose some practical solutions. (*This article was translated from the Russian original in Gorny Zhurnal 2009, No.3, and appears here by kind permission of the publishers and authors.)

Trade statistics of Turkey´s natural stone industry, being highly exported oriented, help to understand the dynamism of the markets for stone all over the world. We publish the exports figures for 2009.

The Brazilian exports of ornamental rocks ended 2009 with a sales figure of US$ 724.1 million, corresponding to the commercialisation of 1,672,624 tons of diverse products. Compared to 2008, these exports figures meant a fall of 24.15% in sales and of 15.94% in total physical volume, numbers that were less than that of 2005.

The Republic of Serbia has limited domestic resources of dimension / decorative stone in volume terms. Below, the Chairman of the Stone Association of Serbia, Zoran Djajic, and the Publisher of KAMEN trade journal, Zika Milovanovic, summarize current knowledge of the sector.

• YESTERDAY- Buyers at the door.
• TOMORROW- Sellers at the door.

• YESTERDAY- Production Manager. 
• TOMORROW-The Sales Person.

• YESTERDAY- 2º quality.  
• TOMORROW- different tone.

• YESTERDAY- We have a big factory. 
• TOMORROW- We have a big showroom.

• YESTERDAY- Extended payment terms.
• TOMORROW- Payment guaranteed.

• YESTERDAY- China. 
• TOMORROW- China, China, India, India.

Ganesh Kumar Murugan

In the last decade, Brazil has introduced hundreds of new dimension stones in the market. In fact, the number of Brazilian launches, in such a short period of time, have surpassed those of all Europe over the last two hundred years.