Foreign Traders are being Encouraged to buy Gems and Jade

In what appears to be a bid to stimulate the market after last year’s disappointing results, foreign traders are being encouraged to buy gems and jade lots to be sold at the 53rd Myanmar Gems Emporium. The absence of Chinese buyers at last December’s emporium was linked to the poor sales, organizers said.

However, the foreign traders will also be asked to stump up bigger deposits, to help ensure that they complete the purchases they say they will make. Goods on sale also include gold and silver, pearls and sculptures.

U Than Zaw Oo, deputy director of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Conservation, told The Myanmar Times that local traders would have to deposit the same sum as last year for the emporium, to be held in Nay Pyi Taw’s Mani Yadana Jade Hall.

Myanmar’s 53rd Jade, Gems and Pearls Emporium

More than 100,000 pearls worth €1.3 million will be displayed and sold by Myanma Pearl Enterprise in the 53rd Myanmar Jade, Gems and Pearls Emporium this month.

The exhibition will be held at Maniyadanar Jade Hall in the capital Naypyitaw from June 24 to 26.

Approximately 250 series of pearls will be displayed in the exhibition, according to MPE, which is under the Ministry of Mining.

Pearl series are groups of pearls separated by size and quality. Pearls which have same size and quality are regarded as belonging to the same series. Different types of series will have different prices. Each series will contain an average of 384 pearls.

Myanmar Jade Exports Down in 2015

Revenues from official Myanmar jade exports declined in the first nine months of fiscal 2015-16, as the profitable industry continues to draw fire safety, ethics and environmental concerns.

According to data of the Ministry of Commerce, US $ S 567 million in revenues were obtained from jade exports from April to December last year compared to US $ 1.4 billion for the 2014-15 fiscal year.

Maritime trade has been $ 262 million, while $ 305 million is attributed to overland trade.

The apparent decline in cifre-, but three months of fiscal official exports will still be counted Win-Myint, director of the Department of Trade Promotion Department of Commerce, said the government was “really only stimulate the jade market in Myanmar. ”

Last Myanmar jade emporium, made exclusively for domestic players, was held in December in Naypyidaw, with more than 6,800 items on the screen.

While gemstone officially sold in several emporiums national and international buyers, most Burmese jade smuggled illegally across the border with China. The amount of illegal gains, not reflected in the official data, but a report by Global Witness in October last year estimated that up to $ 31 billion in Jade left the country in 2014.

Monitoring Research found that most of the profits from the illegal trade related to the government and military elite.

The industry also has been marked by a series of deadly landslides land Hpa Kant in Kachin State in 2015, the worst of which killed more than 100 local search engines in November. Many so-called hand-pickers are attracted Hpa Kant cities across the country to explore huge piles of waste discarded by mining companies seeking precious stone.

Jade remains one of the main exports from Burma, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and the main countries of destination. As quoted in the New World State Light of Myanmar on Tuesday, an official of the Ministry of Commerce has not identified said that total exports are still expected to reach $ 1 billion to close the current financial year.

Hla Tun Aung, secretary of the Myanmar Gems and Jewellery Entrepreneurs Association, said that the Chinese government has been more closely monitor large transfers abroad, limiting the ability of Chinese traders to raise funds for the purchase of jade.

Min Thu, deputy director of the Myanmar Gems Enterprise, agreed that “many Chinese jade traders could not obtain loans from banks to buy jade.”

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