Mr Claudio Maffioletti: I understand there is a lot of Marble availability and how is the business going on with Italy.
Mr Krishna Prasad: We import a lot of marble blocks from Italy and Italy used to buy lot of granites from us. They were one of the largest buyers before China came. But in the last 15-20 years China has taken over. China is the largest importer of granite dimensional blocks from India today.
Mr Claudio Maffioletti: What is the size of Granite exports to Italy?
Mr Krishna Prasad: The total exports of granite to Italy is to the tune of $2 billion. Indian exports to Italy is less than 10%. We buy lot of machinery, marble and these are the two things we import from Italy.
Mr Claudio Maffioletti: Recently we had a meeting and this is one of the matured sectors of business, commerce and commercial relations between Italy and India and if I have to name some of them it is Textiles, Leather, Stone & Marble, Automotive and Auto components as far as manufacturing is concerned.
Shri Krishna Prasad: What I see now in the past few years the participation in STONA has gone down from the Italian side.
Mr Claudio Maffioletti: Besides that the interesting things that we can do is at two levels. One for the Skill Development and Competent Centers, we can consider some collaboration with Italian experts.
Mr Krishna Prasad: This shall be beneficial to our members and also for trade and investments. What kind of benefits are available for Indian importers?
Mr Claudio Maffioletti : Match making with Italian companies is one of them. More and more Indian companies are looking at Italy as an investment destination. The ‘Make in India’ pumps, machinery, heavy industry, auto components, transportation.
Mr Krishna Prasad: Could you recommend long term visa for businessmen as it takes a long time to procure the visas?
Mr Claudio Maffioletti: Yes, if somebody has a specific profile that he has been travelling extensively and to Europe Schengen Visa that is possible.
Mr Claudio Maffioletti: Let us keep aside Trade of Marbles & Stones. In terms of technology do you see any potential or any traction for Italian collaborations for machinery manufacturing in India.
Mr Krishna Prasad: So far they have been importing machinery and we have our own Indian manufacturers producing lot of machinery. We could have zoom meetings with the machine manufacturers and then we can try to look into to the possibility of zoom meetings, collaborations. When we were in Verona last year we invited few people from skill industry of Stone in Europe to come and participate. There were people from France, Germany, Canada. Six to Seven people participated and all of them were interested in the training program.They all have the problem of shortage of labour.
Mr Claudio Maffioletti: What is the ideal profile of the Foreign Buyers? I think for the on-line B 2 B platform let us push it. As far as specific awareness is concerned, regarding manufacturing partnerships on specific technologies is the solution.
Mr Krishna Prasad: Tools, Chemicals, Mining wherein Italy are the masters in mining technology. As far as I know, they are in mining for more than 200-300 years. Mining equipment, Mining technology came in Italy first.
Mr Claudio Maffioletti: Does the mining equipment comes as a section of STONA?
Mr Krishna Prasad: There are the excavators, drilling machines, wire-saws exhibited in STONA and MARMOMAC as well.
Mr Claudio Maffioletti: What are the various aspects of processing in stone industry?
Mr Krishna Prasad: In mining when you get the block, the block is sent to the factory and cutting takes place in the factory, slicing into 20mm 30 mm thickness slabs, polishing which is now fully automatic, it is a line polisher, packaging and dispatching. We have a parallel industry and that is the monument industry where we make monuments of different designs, each country requires different designs.
Mr Claudio Maffioletti: Monuments I would think of buildings and statutes where we get the block and we carve the blocks. So as far as monuments are concerned, the message I am getting is that there are still a substantial wealth of traditional techniques and expertise which as of today cannot be substituted by machines. So this goes beyond the mission of Indo-Italian Chamber of Commerce. I was over thinking of elements that bring together Italy and India and built heritage between India and Italy has always been more than thousand-year-old civilization that have come out with those important monuments.
Mr Krishna Prasad: You can have some kind of Joint Seminars. During STONA we always have a Seminar on mining, on processing issues, technology etc where people can make a presentation on what is happening in the Industry, latest developments in the technology.
Mr Claudio Maffioletti: Solutions which are more sustainable and more efficient to the Stone Industry is the need of the hour.
Mr Krishna Prasad: Stone deposits do not last forever. Even Italy is getting to the bottom of it. marble deposits are getting exhausted as it does not regenerate. Of course we are now getting to artificial granite also using quartz, silica and the process itself is very dangerous. The people working in that industry have got into lung problems and other health related issues. Australia has banned usage of quartz. New Zealand is already thinking on it, next comes US and Canada.
Mr Claudio Maffioletti: Probably at some point the alternative to quartz based will be some synthetic. The counterfeiting of marble is another problem.
Mr Krishna Prasad: Lot of issues are there which should be discussed for mutual benefit. These can be done through Seminars and Conferences.
Mr Claudio Maffioletti: One on sustainability and one is on counterfeiting which is something recurring very frequently, leather, textiles and fabrics. So, perhaps a Joint Institutional Initiative which is primarily in the interest of Italian exporters, also to Indian Buyers and Dealers to have a system that recognizes the authentic product.
Mr Krishna Prasad: These are all areas where we could collaborate to join hands.
Mr Claudio Maffioletti: I am thinking in all these areas, we can think of some specific moments during STONA, but let us warm up for doing B 2 B activities which is on-line.
Mr Krishna Prasad: I know there are many companies who take up projects all over the world and in such projects, they are not into Marble and Granite has to come from all over the World. Architects are now designing in such a way that all materials are involved. So, there is a huge scope.
Mr Claudio Maffioletti: Immediately actionable one is those on-line seminars specific followed by on-line B2B.
Mr Krishna Prasad: There is a lot of scope in that and I think we can always collaborate. We would like to see more participants from Italy in STONA 2025. Thank you for your time. We appreciate your keen interest to work jointly with FIGSI for mutual benefit.
Mr Claudio Maffioletti: Thank you very much indeed.
