Stone Industry Exhibition was taken place at the VDNH in Moscow from 03 Apr to 06 Apr 2018.

The organizer of the exhibition was Expodesign with the participation of the Association CONFINDUSTRIA MARMOMACCINE(Italy) and HUMMEL GMBH (Germany) and support of the Chamber of Industry and Commerce of Russia, Russian Union of Builders, Association of Builders of Russia, Russian Society of Construction Engineer Union of Designers of Moscow.

     Exhibition united companies from Russia, CIS and abroad that work in the field of extraction and processing of natural material and their clients – professionals in stone industry, architects, designers, restorers.
    STONE INDUSTRY-2018 was opened by Vladimir Bykov, Chief of Administration of the Chamber of Industry & Commerce of the Russian Federation, Boris Soshenko, Chairman of Trade Union of Builders of Russia, Andrey Chechetkin, Managing Director of Union of Designers of Moscow, Sunil Arora, Vice-President of the World Association of Natural Stone (WONASA) and others.
    The exhibition STONE INDUSTRY-2018 showed the main trend of development:
    Due to economic crisis and the sharp fall of energy recourses price the building sector fell into decline at the present. However, the Russian natural stone market is on the point of regaining.  The economic climate when rubble faced weakness against the world major currencies has given producers more confidence and helped them to adapt quickly to domestic market, as a result we can notice the production growth. Russian natural stone has become much cheaper now so it has gradually substituted imported stone. At the same time there is shortage of local stone that’s why the import of semi-processed stone and even blocks for stone processing industry is important. Kebstones are currently in great demand, this increase in demand coming mainly due to the government policy named “My Street” by which tens of thousands of kerbstones are being laid in Moscow and other cities of the vast country. As a consequence some local manufacturers of kerbstones have more than doubled their production capacities.
    The market has recently become more sensitive to price, that wasn’t the main factor affecting the choice of stone. Investment in production enhancing machinery for slabs and tiles is no longer taking place. However, there is some revival in investment in CNC and other machines used by stonemasons. The major Russian stone companies are doing much better than before, and also doing better than the smaller stone companies.
    Stone suppliers have noticed the design of element has become much simpler now. Before there used to be many more colors of marble and granite, mosaics.Now, it is more of minimalism, white, grey, brown, simple lines and clean slabs on walls. Along with demonstration of the stone industry state and trends of development the main goals of STONE INDUSTRY-2018 were to highlight the possibilities of natural stone application in city building, architecture, design and other fields, to display up-to-date machinery, tools.
The thematic content of the exhibition includes:
Equipment and technology for geological surveying of natural stone deposits.
Technology for deposits excavation. Equipment for uncovering works, blocks extraction and waste removal.
Technology and equipment for development of sand-gravels and loose stone deposits. Production of decorative chip stones, decorative sand and microcalcite.
Drilling-and-blasting works: techniques and equipment, accident prevention.
Dimensional stone, blocks and slabs.
Natural stone in architecture, landscape design, interior design and town-planning.
Technology and equipment for production of facing stone. Facing products out of natural stone and its wastes. Technologies and tools for facing works. Modern means for facing materials quality control.
Stone processing machinery, equipment
Artworks, souvenirs, statuary art.
Grave monuments.
Maintenance, conservation and restoration of natural stone.
Architectural projects with application of natural stone.
Transportation of natural stone.
Environment protection, reclamation.
    232 companies from 18 countries - Armenia, Belarus, Brazil, China, Czechia, Germany, India, Iran, Italy, Kazakhstan, Montenegro, Portugal, Russia, San-Marino, Spain, Turkey, Ukraine, Uzbekistan exhibited at the area of 7 000 m2.
    The Russian companies made up 40% of the total exhibitors number. Companies from different regions of the country including Ural, Central and South region were present.
This year the Exhibition gathered twice more participants from the Ukraine. Most of them brought granite, gabbro and labradorite from Ukrainian quarries (GEO-INVEST LLC — red-black granite from Kapustino, QUANTA-LH PE -unique labradorite from Katerinovo, etc.)
    STONE INDUSTRY-2018 presents all the variety and beauty of natural stone. The exposition included different kinds of marble: wonderful white marble from Koelga quarry (Ural),elegant beige pinkish and bluish marble from Dagestan (Caucasus),fine pale-yellow marble streaked with pink from Karelia (North of Russia) as well as beautiful marble from India, Italy, Iran, Spain and other countries. Granite formed the biggest part of the exposition - it was brought from quarries of Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Ukraine, India, Finland, Brazil, China, South Africa, etc. ARIA (Iran) presented fabulous gray-orange, beige and smoke-coloured onyx and traonyx applied for design of luxury interiors. BASALTINA SRL (Italy) demonstrated stone that was used in construction of roads and monuments at the time of the Roman Empire, and nowadays was applied for construction of Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and for other famous objects. The stand of MEGRAN (Montenegro) has been faced with beautiful light straw-coloured limestone extracted from own quarry in Danilovgrad. STONE WORLD EXCLUSIVE (India) besides marble and granite showed unique agate (AGATE BLU, AGATE COFFEE and AGATE CRYSTAL) and amethyst.
The exhibition traditionally showcased a great variety of monuments, grave-stones, vases. Among the Russian companies we want to mention GLOBAL STONE PRODUCTION AND TRADE GROUP , FABRIKA KAMNYA LLC and a lot of firms from Karelia where gabbro-diabase is extracted: GABBRO LLC, GABBRO-COMFORT LLC, KAREL STONE, KARELIAN GABBRO-DIABASE LLC, KARELSKIYE MASTERSKIYE ООО, REAL-RK LLC, TRADE HOUSE TRADE GROUPP, LLC etc.
As usual the exposition featured all novelties in the field of stone processing machines. INTERMAC — DONATONI (Italy) and their Russian dealer YTA LLC presented innovative stone processing machines: multipurpose processing center Intermac Master 30, the processing manually-operated center Ghines Group Systar Basic.
The Exhibition testified that the Chinese producers of stone processing machines boosted their representation at the Russian market. This year the unprecedented number of machinery producers from China exhibited at STONE INDUSTRY-2018 — among them CHANGSHA BAICHUAN SUPERHARD MATERIAL TOOLS CO. LTD (trademark TOOLSTAR), FUJIAN NAN'AN JULUN MACHINERY CO. LTD, etc. Other types of the tools and devices were also exhibited.  For example SPECIALINSERT SRL (Italy), new participant displayed a wide range of fasteners.
STONE INDUSTRY-2018 included a comprehensive program of events targeted on the industry professionals. The conference on the topic of restoration work with natural stone took place immediately after exhibition opening. The program of events included special seminars, master classes.