21st Stone Fair, Vitoria -Brazil 30 January -02 February 2024

Brazil is the fifth most-populous country on Earth and accounts for one-third of Latin America’s population. Most of the inhabitants of Brazil are concentrated along the eastern seaboard, although its capital, Brasília, is located far inland and increasing numbers of migrants are moving to the interior. Rio de Janeiro, in the eyes of many of the world, continues to be the preeminent icon of Brazil. The nation’s burgeoning cities, huge hydroelectric and industrial complexes, mines, and fertile farmlands make it one of the world’s major economies. However, Brazil struggles with extreme social inequalities, environmental degradation, intermittent financial crises, and a sometimes deadlocked political system.

Brazil’s economic freedom score is 53.3, making its economy the 133rd freest in the 2022 Index. Brazil is ranked 26th among 32 countries in the Americas region, and its overall score is below the regional and world averages. Brazil’s economic growth slowed in 2019, turned negative in 2020, and rebounded in 2021. Its level of economic freedom has changed little over the past five years. Led by modest score increases in labor freedom and government integrity, Brazil has recorded a mere 0.4-point overall gain in economic freedom since 2017 and remains in the lower ranks of the “Mostly Unfree” countries. Monetary freedom is relatively good, but its fiscal health is among the world’s worst.

At a time when the natural stone industry is facing unprecedented challenges, there is severe competition from new alternative materials, new competitors from other countries, the pandemic, economic turmoil in many markets, it comes as somewhat of a surprise that there is one country, a major player in the world of natural stone, that is showing turbocharged growth. New quarries, profitable growth in sales, especially exports, major investments by companies, a growing local ecosystem of suppliers of all kinds of inputs, upgrading of local skills, relatively young people running the companies, a generally optimistic outlook towards the industry’s future in the country- all the parameters that define an industry with a promising future, are fulfilled in this case. That is what the situation of the Brazilian stone industry currently is during the middle of 2021- call it the Golden Age, and this definition does not look an exaggeration.