Reported by Kong Xiangyi and Zheng Lifang (www.xnnews.com.cn)

　　With 319 enterprises of "Five Stone" (marble, limestone, scherbinaite, quartz stone and dolomite), 76,000 employees and annual turnover of RMB 2.66 billion Yuan….. this is the stone industry of Tongshan County nowadays!

　　In few years, the stone industry of Tongshan has completed the transition from "One Stone" (Marble) to "Five Stones" (marble, limestone, scherbinaite, quartz stone and dolomite) and from "Severally Battle" to "Cluster Development". The label of "Made in Tongshan" has also highlighted the brand effect. Moreover, the market share of marble products from Tongshan has exceeded 70 percent at present.

　　On Jun. 22nd,2011, the reporter came to the Nature Stone CO., LTD. in TongShan County; rows of polishers were in operation. By the processes of carving, bonding, polishing, waxing and so on, pieces of irregular marble raw materials had turned into beautiful and durable panels.

　　From the Cluster Development Management Committee in Tongshan County, the reporter learns that the success of the stone industry which has become the Superchunk in Tongshan, benefits from the development ideas of clustering and branding.

　　In recent years, the county successively set up some relevant service agencies like the Cluster Promoting Center of Stone Material Industry, the Information Center of Stone Material Industry, the Marble Branch of Hubei Stone Material Industry, which aim at providing the comprehensive service platform for the stone material industry and extending the industrial chain in a better way. In order to start the brand and amplify the influence of cluster industries, the county not only values technological innovation, promote industry, academia and research into a longitudinal development, but also establish the cooperation relationship with the media like China Press And Publishing Journal, China Building Materials, the Window of the China Stone, Hubei TV and so on, thus Tongshan stone materials can be introduced in various forms. Tongshan is honored with "The Township of China’s Marble", "The Export Base of Hubei Stone Materials", and "The Production Base of Hubei Marble". Besides, the marble industrial cluster in the county is one of the 60 province focus support industrial clusters, which increased the popularity greatly and highlighted the brand effect.

　　So far, there are 319 cluster enterprises of "Five Stone" industry., 26 of them are large scale enterprises, and the number of possessing the right of import and export business is 20, total value of out-put is 2.665 billion yuan and the profit reaches 350 million yuan, they earn foreign exchange through export by $ 60 million Dollars, the industry and commerce tax is 230 million yuan.