Hoping for better sales of Burmese Hpakant jade in the pre-Chinese New Year, over 1000 Burmese jade merchants, mainly ethnic Kachins in northern Burma, sold jade at the recent jade exhibition in China's southwestern Yunnan province,  though the sales were poor, merchants said.

During the Jade Exhibition in Yingjiang in Dehong Dai -- Jingpo (also called Kachin in Burma) Autonomous Prefecture in Yunnan province on January 8 to 11, the total jade sale was only 7 million Chinese Yuan (US $1,029,412), a Kachin jade merchant in Yingjiang said.

Most jade stones sold at the exhibition were by Chinese jade companies based in Yingjiang. However, customers were not interested in the thousands of jade stones of Burmese jade merchants brought from Hpakant jade mining land in Kachin state to Yingjiang Jade Exhibition, according to merchants.

A Kachin jade merchant told KNG that he had to sell his jade at a special reduction price of 50 million kyat (US $44,643) from the original price of 150 million kyat (US $133,929), to Chinese customers.  Another Kachin jade merchant also added that he had to sell his jade at a 2 million kyat (US $1,186) reduction price from the original price of 2.5 million kyat (US $2,232) to Chinese jade buyers.

Kachin jade merchants said, hundreds of Chinese jade merchants from Tengchong, Kunming and Ruili in Yunnan province and Guangzhou in Guangdong province, visited the jade show. However, only a few businessmen bought jade from Chinese-owned companies.

This jade exhibition was organized by four Chinese-jade companies in Yingjiang and the exhibition would be held every four months, according to Kachin jade merchants in Yingjiang.

A month earlier, before the Yingjiang jade exhibition, Chinese jade companies held the Jiegao jade exhibition in Ruili, the main border trade city in Yunnan with Burma on December 3 to 7, 2008.  The jade exhibition was cold and concluded with hardly any buyers.

In Kachin state, more and more people are turning to the jade business daily even as Chinese jade markets remain cold.  This is because Kachin businessmen and people are not authorized to do other businesses like logging and gold mining by the business system of the ruling junta. Therefore they have turned to the jade business, according to Kachin jade merchants in Yingjiang.

The current global economic crisis and the US ban on Burmese gems have hit Chinese jade companies, as well as small-scale Kachin jade companies and merchants, according to border jade merchants.