Boom in hospitality, tourism sectors:

Enormous potential for gem and jewellery sectors

H.D.H Senewiratne

With the boom in the hospitality and the tourism sectors in Sri Lanka, there is enormous potential for the local gem and jewellery sectors to grow in leaps and bounds, due the acute demand for local gems among tourists due to our reliability and trust, Chairman, Zam Gems, Alhaj Zam Refai said.

He said, “We are concentrating on expanding the gem industry within Sri Lanka, by opening new branches in upcoming five star rated hotels, resorts, luxury shopping complexes and at the new airport in Mattala, with the objective bringing more foreign revenue to the country.”

“At present, we have shops in almost all five star hotels in Sri Lanka and we are at present having discussions with Shangri La Hotel authorities to set up an outlet once the hotel has been established in 2015,” he said.

He said that the gem and jewellry industry had for many decades been one of the key foreign currency earners of the country. Further, with the end of the war in 2009, the industry had been displaying a substantial growth in export revenue. “This growth could be mainly attributed to the end of the conflict that made way for the rapid growth in the hospitality and the tourism sectors which was a vital market for the gem and jewellery industry,” Refai said.

The company’s annual turnover was US $ 10 million, but the main problem was to get good gems. Therefore, with many odds the company’s main objective was to sell the best and high quality gems and jewellery to the customers, he said. He said that since they did not find high quality precious stones in Sri Lanka, they were at present purchasing gems from Tanzania and Madagascar through their agents.

The Chairman said that their customers include, many prominent politicians, ambassadors, foreign counterparts and VVIPs, Zam Gems also set on a journey to expand their business to overseas markets. Having started this journey in 1997 with the opening of two shops in the Maldives, it had since then established more various stores in China, Malaysia, Qatar and many more countries in the pipeline, he said. The company was now the main exporter of gems and jewellery in the country.

Alhaj Refai said that they were now more interested in entering the Chinese and India markets, since it was now one of the emerging markets in the world. Currently, buyers were now from Japan, South Korea, USA and France, he said. The company hasd two factories in Colombo and Kandy and also employs a special marketing team to study internationals trends in the sector, he said.