Qingtian (CNS) -- When Liu Zhou was a prentice stone sculptor 20 years ago, in Qingtian County, east China's Zhengjiang Province, a piece of artwork was worth thousands of yuan.
The current secretary general of the county's stone sculpture association has seen the price of Qingtian stone carvings surge 100 times. The finest pieces cost up to over millions of yuan.
As one of China's most precious stones and the most ideal material to make seals with, the Qingtiao stone, a favorite of generations of stone sculptors, is featured with fancy colors and solid quality.
The stone is so valuable that it can be used to secure mortgage loans in China. Private Qingtian stone processor Zhang Aiguo was granted a loan of 5 million yuan (about 790,000 USD), secured with stone carving crafts, reported the Contemporary Gold Newspaper, a news outlet under the Xinhua News Agency.
Liu attributed the price hike to the raw materials that are on the verge of being exhausted, rising labor costs and intense competition.
Manual exploitation can preserve the resources to the largest extent and use them in a more efficient way, he said. Capital inflows from China's real estate market to the art collection market, due to potential property industry downturn, also plays a role in the soaring prices of the precious stone, added Liu.
Over the past 30 years, enterprises from all over China, including Wenzhou, began to invest heavily into the collections of Qingtian stone carving crafts. Emigrants, accounting for almost half the county's population, have also shown great interest in the stone fortune.
Liu's two prentices own businesses in Spain and returned to Qingzhou for local opportunities. Some returning emigrants, believing the price will climb further, travel to Southeast Asia to acquire stone carvings sold previously, said Liu.
