by Luciano Galassini18   Dicembre   2013

Rio summit of the world's leading ceramic tile producer countries

The 2013 edition of the World Ceramic Tile Forum has been held in Brazil

The 2013 edition of the World Ceramic Tile Forum, held in Rio de Janeiro from 6 to 9 November, was attended by 14 major producer countries that together make up almost 90% of world production. Chaired by Alfonso Panzani, president of both the World Forum and the European Ceramic Tile Manufacturers’ Federation CET, the meetings ran for three days and were organised around four theme areas: national situation, state of standardisation in the sector, sustainability, and promotional initiatives.

So what picture emerged from the reports on the state of the economy and of the performance of the industry in the various countries? The situation outlined is a very familiar one: the countries in the American continent (Brazil, USA, Mexico and Argentina) are performing strongly, as are Australia, the Gulf states, Turkey, Ukraine and of course China and Taiwan; Japan is also recovering, whereas Europe is still struggling. Two figures alone are sufficient to give an idea of the current world situation in terms of volumes: Chinese exports and Brazil’s production, which have both passed the 1 billion square metre mark, on a par with the entire output of Europe. Because the figure declared by China for total production of around 9 billion m2 raised some doubts, it was decided to create a working group to study these statistics. The conclusion reached was that these data probably refer to production capacity rather than actual production, but even revised downwards by 30% the figure is still staggering. But figures are not everything and in terms of innovation, quality, aesthetics and ethics, the European countries – and Italy in particular – maintain a dominant position. The table linked to below provides an overview of the main economic indicators of the participating countries.

Addressing the theme of standardisation, the Forum took stock of the situation following the last plenary meeting of the ISO held in Istanbul in late June 2013 and the latest meetings of the working groups.
The latest work in progress includes a standard for thin panels and large sizes, the standard on the sustainability of ceramic tiling, the standard on antibacterial properties, and establishing the dimensional tolerance requirements for rectified products. As for methods, the discussion concentrated on absorption, abrasion resistance and frost resistance. Work has already been completed on elastic adhesives, backer boards, guidelines for installation and a large portion of adhesives, glues and installation membranes.

In the introduction to the theme of standardisation, participants were brought up to date with the proposal to review the classification of customs codes for ceramic tiles. The proposal discussed at the 2012 meeting of the Forum was accepted by the World Customs Organization’s first negotiating round and was submitted with a few amendments to the second round held in the third week of November. At the Rio meeting it was again proposed to eliminate the distinction between glazed and unglazed tiles. Instead there would be three classes and tariff headings for field tiles according to absorption: up to 0.5%, between 0.5% and 10% and >10%; a tariff heading for special pieces without distinctions based on absorption; a heading for ceramic mosaics. Last but not least, the method for determining absorption is under discussion.

On the subject of sustainability, the main issue discussed at the Forum was the European initiative for defining shared rules for environmental product declarations (EPD). It was decided to create a working group to develop globally shared PCRs (Product Category Rules) in order to create comparable EPDs for our sector.

On the subject of ceramic tile promotion, the participants discussed the actions conducted by a number of countries including Italy, Spain and Australia.

The 2014 meeting of the World Ceramic Tile Forum is to be held the United Arab Emirates in the second week of November.