History of the Global Stone Congress = Storia del Global Stone Congress

The Global Stone Congress (GSC), originally called the International Congress on Dimension Stones (ICDS), was first held in Brazil in 2005. The event arose from a partnership between the Centre for Mineral Technology (CETEM), a research institute of the Ministry of Science, Technology, Innovation and Communication (MCTIC) and the Center for Technology of Marble and Granite (CETEMAG), with the support of the Brazilian Association of the Dimension Stone Industry (ABIROCHAS) and members of the Brazilian Dimension Stones Technology and Quality Network (RETEQ-ROCHAS). Other editions of the event were subsequently held in Italy (2008), Spain (2010), Portugal (2012) and Turkey (2014), adopting the formal name Global Stone Congress in Spain (2010). The last edition of the GSC (2018) returned to Brazil, organized by CETEM and ABIROCHAS, at Ilhéus, in the State of Bahia. In 2021 GSC will be held again in Portugal. This paper gathers brief information on all the six editions of this event, aiming to register the memory of the Global Stone Congress as the main technical-scientific event in the world of natural stone.