Marble industry optimistic ahead of union budget

Mumbai, March 01, 2016: India’s leading Marble and Granite companies of India – Classic Marble Company(CMC) has expressed optimism for the marble industry in the upcoming Union Budget 2016. The company has said that the Government has made significant strides to promote manufacturing in India under the Make In India campaign and has appealed to the Finance Ministry to strongly consider inclusion of artificial or agglomerated marble slabs or tiles under the ‘Merchandise Exports From India Scheme (MEIS)’.

“Our industry today faces a big threat from countries like China, Taiwan and Korea who also are exporters of artificial or engineered stones that include Marble, Quartz slabs and tiles. These countries are adopting aggressive pricing policies. A number of Indian players in the sector who have made substantial investments in setting up of state of the art plants and machineries are losing out to their Chinese counterparts on account of price competitiveness. We are hopeful that the Finance Ministry extends our industry an MEIS incentive of 5 per cent on export of engineered stones to all the three A, B and C category countries. This will not only spur growth but also increase the nation’s net exports,” says Mr. Amit Shah, Director, CMC.

Silvassa Marble Association of which Classic Marble Company is an active member, has in the recent past made recommendations to the Commerce Secretary for assistance on incentivising exports of agglomerated stones under MEIS scheme.

“In the last two years, India has exported nearly five hundred containers equivalent to INR 70 Crores of manufactured or engineered stones. These are quality products conforming to International Standards made from imported material and processed using the latest technology. Despite making quality products, India’s share is just 0.01 per cent of the global market. If only the Government provisions a 5 per cent incentive to our industry then we are hopeful that India’s share could easily increase by another 0.25 per cent in the global market,” concludes Mr. Vikas Kesarkar, Vice-President – Marketing, CMC.

Corporate Comm India (CCI Newswire)