Indian Jewelry » Jewelry in India

India has achieved spectacular progress in the world of gems and jewellery over the last few decades, but it has not been smooth sailing all along. Whatever success India has claimed has been achieved by the hard, devoted work of its artisans, expertise of its designers and the business acumen of its entrepreneurs. During the years past, the country had to face numerous difficulties, adverse situations, but it goes to the credit of India's determined precious sector that it has never looked back. Excelsior has always been its motto. The latest year under reckoning (2004-05) witnessed rather indifferent conditions in overseas markets, yet the Indian gems and jewellery sector has been able to register a 29+ % upswing in its exports. Spurred on by this continuing upturn, the precious sector has promptly raised its target to US$20 billion by 2007. Additionally, India has become the Employer of Choice as currently it is employing more workers in the precious sector than the combined total of workers of all other gems and jewellery manufacturing countries.

Diamonds, colored gemstones, pearls have all contributed to the exports gain, but the blue-eyed baby is branded jewellery - the latest darling of the world of fashion and adornment. India's jewellery outflow has soared to record a handsome growth of 42+% during 2004-05. In this context, let me recall the 3'd Gold City Conference held at Dubai in mid-February, 2005. Bigwigs of the precious world put their heads together and finally agreed unanimously that jewellery is the future of the precious world - not just plain traditional jewellery for which Dubai and India have been well known since long, but the latest branded variety, conceived, designed and fabricated as a special offering by experts of the sector. And it has also been agreed that even branded jewellery would not click by itself.

It has to be promoted vigorously and publicized widely, then only it will claim a bigger share of the global luxury market, in which, surprisingly enough, the front runners are perfumes, watches, electronic innovations like mobile phones etc., that are being preferred by the younger generation more than jewellery. Incidentally, that reminded me of an earlier meeting at London a couple of years ago with the De Beers helmsman - Nicky Oppenheimer. He underlined the fact that diamonds and jewellery were rather poor cousins in the booming luxury goods market and had to be promoted and pushed more aggressively. That realization resulted in the course-correction of De Beers and the switch over to the Supplier of Choice strategy; the subsequent jewellery boom has been achieved by the Sight holders of DTC who have been busy all along in creating and marketing their own brand collections. Not only the elite diamantaires, but also many others followed suit and no wonder, branded jewellery has become the order of the day here and elsewhere.

In the jewellery loving countries, of course promotionally supported by De Beers (DTC), Rio Tinto, World, Gold Council, Platinum Guild International, etc.

A welcome trend which India has pioneered and popularized is the additional studding of colored gemstones in diamond jewellery, India, it may be mentioned here, has been processing small diamonds. The same are now being studded in jewellery too, but tiny diamonds do not satisfy many jewellery lovers. Therefore, placing a larger colored gem among the diamonds improved the entire design and it's larger, heavier look satisfied connoisseurs. The innovation became popular and gave a push to colored gems too. Besides other jewellery items, also the latest crazes like the DTC promoted Right Hand Ring, Dangles and Chandeliers often display this delightful combination in contrast of diamonds and colored gems.

While profusely producing natural gem mines of yore have been nearly exhausted and the new ones being explored and developed have not become fully productive, shortage of rough has become a universal problem. Diamonds and colored gems are more or less facing the same scarcity. This dearth has pushed up rough prices too. Additionally, it has been instrumental in opening the flood gates for synthetic gems - as well as treated look- alikes, simply because gems and jewellery lovers want more gems - real or otherwise for fashionable adornment. This is a challenging situation indeed, because detecting the lab-created or treated goods is a hard technical job. Hence, more and more testing labs are coming up and various recognized trade bodies like the Gemological Institute of America (GIA), the World Federation of Diamond Bourses (WFDB), the International Color stone Association (ICA) , CIBJO, etc. are prescribing compulsory full, unambiguous disclosure of synthetic or treated gems by their members - an essential,
welcome initiative for maintaining consumer confidence and the integrity of real darlings that are claimed to be a joy for ever. All these latest problems are to be addressed further in depth and detail by top experts at the Global Diamond Conference "Mines to Market" being hosted by India at Mumbai in May - end 2005.

Wishing you a Year of Choice, I am happy to place in your hands this latest 30th edition of our globally patronized Gem & Jewellery Year Book, India's own and only reference compendium covering the entire field of gems and jewellery from Mines to Market.

We have been endeavoring to make this reference annual as useful as possible for connoisseurs like you. We hope you will find it useful for furthering your business contacts. If you think anything in the broad- spectrum coverage needs to be altered or added, please get back to us with your esteemed suggestions.