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Stone and Aggregate
A. Stone Industry
With the increased stone exports to Japan since the 1970s as momentum, the Korean stone industry's development and production have become vigorous. With the advent of the 1980s, this industry has made remarkable progress owing to increased domestic demand as a result of an enhanced national income level and an expanded export market. Striving to promote the development of stone resources under the auspices of the Prime Minister in November 1988, the Ministry of Commerce and Energy was assigned to survey stone reserves and provide the facilities, working funds, and other support services. The Office of Forestry, on the other hand, was tasked to issue permits to excavate stone in the national forestry. The respective mayors and governors were then assigned to supervise the registration of stone extracting businesses. Towards the development and conservation of aggregate resources, the Aggregate Extraction Law was enacted in December 1991, and the relevant functions were divided among the Ministry of Commerce and Energy, the Ministry of Construction and Transportation, and the Office of Forestry.

Various kinds of rocks used as construction materials and objects for craft work in Korea are evenly distributed throughout the country. Twenty-five percent of the county's land area is blessed with various kinds of granites, which are most commonly used as building stone. The domestic demand for building stone has been on the rise due to the trend of growing construction of larger and higher class buildings. Because of the impact of the Foreign Exchange Crisis, however, domestic demand for building stone temporarily declined. Between 1998 and 2001, the average yearly growth rate of domestic demand was 12.4%. On the other hand, the domestic demand for tough stone in the same period requirements for stone extraction for the sake of environment conservation.

The actual output of tough stone as of 2001 stood at 2 million tons or about 80.6 billion won. The main producing districts include Pocheon of the Gyeonggi-province, Iksan of the Jeonbuk province, Munyeong of the Gyeongbuk province, and Goheung of the Jeonnam provice. The rough stone produced is mainly light gray and rose pink granite.

The present status of the stone industry as of the end of 2001 shows 78 companies with 974 employees are engaged in excavating tough stone from 78 stony mountains and 499 companies are engaged in stone-processing. Majority of the companies are small-scale businesses and are rather insignificant. Meanwhile, with the deterioration of stone-cutting and processing equipment and a shortage of processing technicians, the actual yield of rough stone in Korea is 40~50% compared to a yield of 70% in other countries. Under this situation, it is imperative to improve the yield and, at the same time, to standardize the products to achieve mass production and maintain a consistent and timely supply of the products.
 
<Status of Stone Industry in Korea (2001) >
  Operating
Companies		 Employees Production
(bil £Ü )		 Import
(1,000U$)		 Export
(1,000U$)
¡¡Stone 78 974 80.6 5,723 2,304
¡¡Fabrication 499 4,897 527.7 165,680 16,293
¡¡Total 577 5,781 608.3 171,403 18,597
 
On the other hand, while the export of building stone increased by over 30% every year from 1980 to 1989, there were limits to exploiting export markets caused by the increasingly heavy reliance of exports to Japan as well as the erosion of Japanese markets by low-end products from China and India. The export of building stone declined in 1989, and the annual average increase rate from 1990 to 2001 was -22.2%. Nonetheless, the import of building stone, which was focused mainly on maroon marble, low-end semi-finished products, and finished products from China, and which was prompted by a shortage of domestic rough stone supply, the presence of high-class buildings, and the consumers' preference of various colors, rose by an annual average rate of 9.7% between 1990 and 2001.
 
< Import and Export of Stone >
  Export Import
Marble Granite Others Total Marble Granite Others Total
1994 175 34,883 363 35,421 539 26,017 711 27,267
1995 42 27,597 151 27,790 675 27,014 1,489 29,178
1996 76 16,305 276 16,657 745 23,980 1,621 26,346
1997 2 16,193 64 16,259 1,391 18,949 2,521 22,861
1998 24 7,118 117 7,259 354 7,807 475 8,636
1999 17 4,395 70 4,482 572 6,088 1,126 7,786
2000 27 4,494 293 4,814 503 5,188 2,267 7,958
2001 5 2,221 78 2,304 345 3,351 2,027 5,723
2002 9 1,739 42 1,790 882 2,022 3,053 5,957
 
<Import and Export of Fabrication >
(Unit : 1,000U$)
  Export Import
6801 6802 6803 Total 6801 6802 6803 Total
1994 26 174,600 430 175,056 108 40,784 641 41,533
1995 40 149,527 300 149,867 256 77,192 501 77,949
1996 13 106,966 159 107,138 210 100,346 712 101,268
1997 1 77,553 170 77,724 393 117,632 536 118,561
1998 21 40,339 870 40,447 68 32,004 242 32,354
1999 74 29,904 82 30,060 23 4,3254 233 43,510
2000 26 21,101 63 21,190 230 97,927 237 98,394
2001 7 16,275 11 16,293 477 164,866 337 165,680
2002 1 10579 46 10,626 89 282,107 516 282,712

Notes)
6801(HS cord number) : Paving stone, Curb stone, Flag stone
6802 : Granite and Marble fabrication
6803 : Slate and etc. fabrication
 
B. Aggregate Industry
The Aggregate industry is grouped into woodland aggregate, river aggregate, land aggregate, and sea aggregate. As of the end of 2001, 253 companies with 4,436 employees were engaged for 2001 was broken down by type: 50.0% for woodland aggregate, 22.8% for river aggregate including land aggregate and 27.2% for sea aggregate. The annual extraction totaled a staggering 115 million cubic meters.
 
< Status of Woodland aggregate >
  1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 ratio(%)
¡¡Companies 313 292 292 278 214 237 230 253 ¡â 3.0
¡¡Employees 5,645 5,201 5,715 4,836 3,602 4,178 3,913 4,436 ¡â 3.4
¡¡Annual Production
¡¡(\10mil)		 4,609 5,120 6,082 5,697 4,473 5,322 5,925 6,803 ¡â 5.7
¡¡Annual Ave. Production
¡¡(\10mil)		 14.7 17.5 20,8 20.5 20.9 22.5 25.8 26.9 ¡â 9.0

The ratio is based on the comparison with the data of 1994.
 
C. The Policy of Supporting the Stone and Aggregate industry
The Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy came to be in charge of the promotion and supports of the stone industry by the direction of the Prime minister in November 1998. Accordingly, the ministry established the policy of nurturing the stone industry in order to minimize the destruction of the lands and to raise the degree of the resources utilization. The ministry has been in basic surveys on the reserved areas under the plan of long-term surveys by district and by year to secure the supply of the aggregates.
 
- Survey of stone resources
For the survey of stone resources, the survey project of the area distribution status commenced in 1985, and the basic survey of stone reserves of 1,983 mine lots (2,0783 §´ ) completed in 1997. The five-year survey was established and executed for five years, from 1998 to 2002. the surveys of 439 mine lots (1,185 §´ ) were completed, and at present, the annual plan is being implemented.
 
< Status of stone reserves survey >
1985~1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 Total
¡¡Stone reserve survey (§´) 2,083 30 93 80 70 66 1,185
¡¡Survey budget (\mil) 2,573 221 120 100 100 100 3,214
¡¡Drilling (m) 6,848 360 310 274 195 150 8,137
¡¡Minable reserves (1,000§©) 5,088 308 131 30 6 32 5,595
 
- Exploration Supports to Stone Pit
The government has been completely subsidizing the expenses of the drilling and exploration of the developing stone pits since 1990. This is due to secure the economic workable reserves by the scientific exploration. During 1990~2002 year, the total depths of 107,390 m were drilled to the 414 quarries.
 
- Fostering the Skilled Technicians and Offering the Technical Information
The Korea stone industry has been experiencing the problems of labor both at the quarrying firms and at the fabrication firms. This is mainly caused by the sharp expansion of the industry. Accordingly, the Korea Resources Corp. (KORES) has established long and short term education courses. It has educated 1,035 technicians from 1980 to 2002 and supplied to the stone industry.

The Office of Supporting Stone Industry, KORES in Iksan, Jeonbuk Province which was established in March 1993, has disciplined the skilled technicians of stone, and opened the Exhibition center for stones at which many new products are displayed, and professional discussion and seminars are held to exchange information and to furnish them as well.
 
- Financial Supports for the Stone and Aggregate Industry
The funds for business and facilities such as modern facilities of quarrying, fabrication, pollution protection and the funds for moving into stone fabrication complex has been loaned to the stone firms since 1989 with the financial investment and the special fund of the government and KORES. Since 1994, the aggregate firms which produces the mountain aggregate have also been being subsidized the business and facility funds.
 
- Reserves Survey on the Aggregate Resources
The government established the basic survey plan of aggregate resources, which was conducted by every year. The first stage of survey were carried out during 1993~1997 and completed the total area of 2,495 §´ including 400 §´ of rivers, 295 §° of forests in the Chungchong province and 1,800 §´ of the northern sea areas in the gulf of Gyeonggi province coast of 3,134 §´ . The second stage of survey has been surveyed the area of 14,898 §´ including Gyeonggi, Gyeongnam and Chungcheong province. And the third stage of survey will be carried out the area of 24,347 §´ (five districts) from 2003 to 2010.