New Delhi (Mizzima) - After nearly a year of negative growth in the trade of jade, Burmese gem merchants are optimistic of a slight increase in business as foreign traders are again returning to the country.
Jade merchants in Mandalay, Burma’s second largest city, told Mizzima they have again found some jade buyers, mostly from China, within the past week and are hopeful of an upswing in business.
“We have again seen buyers, after a year of poor business,” explained one merchant who wished to remain anonymous.
The source affirmed that most of the traders are from China, but insisted despite the influx of businessmen the Burmese jade industry will still continue to struggle toward a state of normalcy for some times.
“We cannot get the price we expected, as they are buying at a lower price this time,” said the source.
She said they can now sell with about half of the price less than the marketing price of the past. Jade stones are currently sold with Burmese Kyat 300,000 (equivalent to US$ 306) while they were worth Kyat 500,000 (US$ 510) in the past when the jade business was well doing.
In Kachin state, the regional center of Burmese jade production, most people including members of the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) rebel group depend on the production and selling of natural resources such as jade, gold and timber for their livelihood. Because of this, the recent prolonged downswing in the trade of jade has hit local communities hard, an economic situation only worsened by the high degree of state control over the business.
In Phakant, the place of main jade production in Kachin State, the business has been badly affected since last November as there was no buyer for green stones. As a result, local people and the merchants struggled for their livelihood.
A local businessperson in Phakant said, “Here we could not sell stones [jade] for a long time, it was very difficult to find buyers, though now the situation has improved a little bit.”
Yet, the local source continued to speculate on the bleak prognosis for local industry: “The situation will be worse for us in the future, we will have fewer and fewer options by which to gain from this business for our lives.”
According to the local source and merchants, the slowdown of business might be the affect of global financial crisis and the US sanctions, which bans buying of jewellery from Burma, an Act signed by former President George W. Bush on July 19.
Another merchant also from Mandalay remarked that traders are happy to again see some buyers, but cautioned it is too early to be overly optimistic about the state of the industry.
Other large jade enterprises in Kachin state include Ever Winner, Myanmar Dagaung and Share Family, each owned by Chinese interests and controlling large swaths of jade mining.
Burma’s military government widely promotes, through the Ministry of Mines, jade as a source of income – allocating a total of six blocks for the mining of jade in Shan and Kachin states and Sagaing Division (at Mineshu, Namhyar, Moenyin, Mawlu, Mawhan and Khamti) in January of 2009.
Additionally, the military junta has conducted annual gem and jewellery exhibitions in Rangoon since 1964 and later, commencing in 1992, began holding biannual fairs. The emporiums typically earn the junta millions of dollars on each occasion.
The junta announced it had earned more than US$ 172 million from the sale of gemstones in an exhibition of gems and jewellery held in October 2008.
Burma is known for producing some of the highest quality precious stones in the world, including rubies, jade, emerald, topaz, pearl, sapphire and coral.
