Gem industry given slipshod treatment by the Government
View(s):Sri Lanka’s leading international gem and jewellery show – 28th FACETS Gem and Jewellery 4-day International Exhibition was held last week at the BMICH with Dr Sarath Amunugama, Minister of Science, Technology, Research, Skills Training and Kandyan Heritage as Chief Guest and with two significant highlights.
To buy or not to buy? This visitor to the FACETS exhibition last week is enthralled by the display of gem stones. Pic by Priyantha Wickramarachchi
One was the presence of Anura Kumara Dissanayake, MP and leader of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna at the opening ceremony. He also took time off to visit every gem and jewellery stall exhibited joining the other dignitaries.
The other development was a book on the Sri Lankan gem industry by Vlad Yavorskyy, a gemology expert in Russia, which was launched at the fair.
On the sidelines of the opening ceremony, he told the Business Times that, “What is wrong with the gem industry in Sri Lanka is that everybody is money driven and what is missing in the industry, is that it has no romance”.
At the same time he commended the industry by saying it is fantastic and it covers the whole world. “Now you are the number one centre for Blue Sapphires in the World. You took it from Bangkok. Well deserved,” he added.
He said, “The true value of a gem stone is love, passion and in the eyes of somebody who is watching it. It is not about how many carats and how many or the price of a carat, because that changes. Love for gem stones remain. That is why we wrote this the book,” he stressed.
Before embarking on writing the book, Mr. Yavorskyy visited gem mining sites in Elahera, Ratnapura, Kataragama and Sigiriya and made a thorough study. In the Ratnapura area he found very rare gem stones which fetch very high prices. In Elahera he found that very rare blue sapphires could be found.
JVP leader Mr. Dissanayake, also spoke to the Business Times, commending the exhibition and said that the gem industry in Sri Lanka has a very rich history and has created a name in the world.
At the inauguration, A.H.M. Imtizam, Chairman, Sri Lanka Gems and Jewellery Association (SLGJA) said that gem and jewellery is one of the top five foreign exchange earners to the country’s economy and their association is the apex private sector organization representing the interests of all industry sub-sectors from mining to manufacturing, wholesale and retail, to make Sri Lanka a gem and jewellery hub in the South Asian Region and the ‘Sapphire Capital of the World’.
Speaking to the Business Times on the sidelines of the inauguration, he said that while it is great to achieve one billion dollar target, the industry due to the economic policies of the government is sliding into a ‘deep precipice’ as a 30 year-old tax exemption on the gem industry is now re-imposed resulting in a drop in the export of gems by less than half, now.
He said that this will impose very serious repercussions on the industry and it is surviving now due to 90 per cent of gem exports which are imported rough stones from some African countries, value added by cutting and polishing them and re-exported.
He said that the drop in exports would result in the drop in the foreign exchange earnings and in turn it would affect foreign investors coming to Sri Lanka. He said that the government is more interested in collecting taxes, rather than promoting exports which is of paramount importance to the country’s economy.
He said that they have been making representations to every possible authority, even not leaving the highest state authority – the President of the country, yet he lamented that results are yet to be seen.
(QP)