Gem and Jewellery, major player in economy - Dr. Amunugama

COLOMBO: According to statistics the country earns US $ 450 mln. through exports of Gem and Jewellery. Therefore we should make this more economically important, said Dr. Sarath Amunugama Minister of Enterprise Development and Investment addressing the “Facets 2007” Gems and Jewellery Exhibition at the BMICH.

He said: When examining the various sectors of the Sri Lankan economy with the objective of identifying areas where there is a true potential, the gems and jewellery sector is definitely one where we have a natural advantage.

It is also one of the oldest sectors as Sri Lanka has been known for the quality of her gems for centuries if not millennia.

These are some of the reasons that led me to express the view that the Gems and Jewellery sector can easily become a billion dollar operation. Today the name of the game, in economic terms is to achieve a larger volume of business.

There are sectors, which we can target to grow and if we work at it they have the potential of becoming billion dollar operations.

The success story that comes to my mind is the domestic garments industry, which is now a billion dollar operation. Every year they have reached this level of business.

The Minister said another sector where we can definitely reach the billion-dollar mark is the tea industry. Up to now it has reached in some years US$ 800 million but in the future, could well attain the billion-dollar mark.

Another contender for growth is tourism which has the potential of reaching the US$ 1 billion mark. And the fifth and the one we are concerned with today is the Gem and Jewellery industry, which we must succeed to push up so that it is able to become a one billion dollar industry.

According to our statistics the country earns US $ 450 million through exports of gems and jewellery, or roughly half a billion dollars. I must also add that of this 50% comes from the diamond cutting industry, not from the local gem and jewellery industry.

In the case of the former industry, we need to import diamonds from South Africa, which are processed and the value added earns the country nearly half of the total earning from this sector, he said.

There is need to make this sector more economically important and we must therefore concentrate our efforts in that direction in the years to come. Today the diamond sector is working in isolation and the jewellery manufacture is to a greater extent tied up with the local gem sector.

But we can generate many improvements and I feel that the Gem and Jewellery Industry can indeed benefit if these reforms are in place.

So we are meeting at a time when we had to look very seriously at the internal component of our half a billion dollars and see which of these areas can reach our target faster.

The diamond component is moving very much faster. We are earning a lot of global recognition for diamond cutting, and I think it high time that we begin to learn some of the lessons of the diamond cutting industry and apply them in particular to the local gems and jewellery manufacture to boost the sector.

Once these new reforms are implemented I am confident that the precious stones of Sri Lanka will work like charms and we will see the foundation of a mega industry.

The know-how of the diamond cutting industry when combined with the skill of the local industry will no doubt be a major component to any future growth of the gems and jewellery sector, he said.