2010/03/18
Portugal on the route of millionaires
Ceramic Luxury

More sophisticated pottery is taking the luxury market, which thrives in the Arab countries and Russia. About 40 companies that bet on innovation already export 60 million for this niche. Royal houses, palaces of emirs or the White House are clients.

The US Senate and the Russian White House, mosques and Orthodox churches, palaces of emirs and royal residences, private jets and some of the best hotels in the world are buying luxury Portuguese ceramics. A market that has 40 betting firms, which sell 60 million per year for this unique niche market that thrives immune to the times of crisis.

If you have the privilege of ever traveling in the Maharaja Express, one of the most luxurious train in the world, that will tour India from next year, will drink tea and enjoy meals served on china Portuguese coated platinum.

The stringent international tender to supply about 5 thousand pieces to that train was won by Porcel ( www.porcel.pt), company Oliveira do Bairro, which is specializing in luxury pottery for export.

The discrete Porcel facilities are also sought to respond in detail to the whims of emirs - when they make sumptuous wedding parties for five thousand guests - on a plate decorated with three types of gold may cost 200 euros. But the royal houses of Norway and Monaco.
"In this segment, too demanding, the product is very personal, thought-to-order, which sometimes come here more than once until we get together, what we really want," told commercial director Porcel Paulo Amaro, produces about 4 million pieces per year, 70% of them for export. One-third of its production is for the international luxury market, with the United States to the head, Scandinavia, Arab countries and Eastern Europe.

Because the aesthetic preferences of the markets in which it operates are very different - a Nordic love of simple lines, a Arab appreciates the pageantry and gold - Porcel mustered the designers of various nationalities as well as a serious commitment to engineering to develop materials unique, difficult to reproduce. "After 22 years of existence - with a strategic change in the last decade - we have to realize that if we had chosen to research, design and products of top probably would not have survived," notes Paul Amaro.

It was this wing coup that also gives the Faria & Bento (www.fariaebento.com) withstand the crisis that led to the closure of about 150 ceramic factories in the last decade and, in contrast, thrive in the international market, to which it exports 98% of its production. That company Alcobaça, which began in 1982 with 18 people and now employs 160 workers, realized in 90 years, which could not continue to produce the same stone-its competitors."We hired a Swedish professor who has been here one month to train and stayed six months to produce just to learn," said Charles Davis, CEO and founder of the company specializes in decorative and utilitarian ware." "Today, we have patented a unique product in the world, the porcelain tiles, designed to be more resistant, lightweight and capable of working in a wide range of colors. Proud of international recognition, "the Portuguese brand of hospitality better known in the world," Carlos Faria likes to pick up and stroking the softness of a dish coated with platinum that can go in the washing machine, designed on the spot, or colored ceramic pots that can go in the oven and microwave and are nonstick. The company expects turnover of EUR 4 million.

It is also the innovation that the Topcer ( www.topcer.com) , company specializing in pavements and wall tiles Victorian to a growing demand from international markets, to which it exports 93% of its production."Today we got an order to coat the floor of a church in Saratov in Russia," he told DN Alexandre Lopes, the managing partner of the company making about 5 million to provide mosques in Bahrain, the best World hotel in Dubai, English pubs, the palace of the Government of Angola or the bathrooms of the new World Trade Center.