The Australian visit forms part of a raft of new international promotional activities announced at the opening of Signature 2013, India’s showcase of leading jewellery manufacturers.
Explaining that Australia is an important market for the Indian jewellery industry, the Gem and Jewellery Export Promotion Council (GJEPC) has organised a trade delegation of 15 major jewellery suppliers to meet with Australian buyers in May.
GJEPC promotional marketing convenor Sanjay Kothari explained that the delegation was part of a wider program for 2013.
“Signature is our first fair for the year and its main focus is the local market. Our major international event remains IIJS in August, but this year we have expanded our activities with a new consumer jewellery show in Delhi 12-15 April.
“It will be the first time we have organised a consumer show.”
Prior to that event, Kothari said the GJEPC would host a Chinese delegation of coloured gemstone buyers who would meet with Indian suppliers in Jaipur. There they would tour local factories and be hosted at the consumer jewellery show.
The Australian delegation is also a new initiative and Kothari said it followed other successful trade delegations to the US, Europe and China.
“It will be a buyer-seller meet where 15 Indian jewellers will meet with local buyers. We feel that although people are coming to India from Australia, maybe to IIJS and buying diamonds, we want to increase our sales of jewellery to Australia.”
Kothari said that the GEPC would offer three formats for jewellery buyers to interact with suppliers.
“The IIJS is still our main international exhibition where 30,000 visitors come to see 2,000 stalls. Then we have Signature, our smaller show with 1,000 stalls or over 500 niche companies, and then we have the third format where buyers meet one-on-one with one customer at a time at a five-star hotel.”
The GJEPC actively promotes the Indian jewellery market and Vipul Shah, GJEPC chairman said that the industry was aiming for a 15-20 per cent increase in sales this year.
“India’s jewellery exports increased to US$46.9 billion last year, which makes us the second largest export industry behind petroleum, which had US$56 billion in exports. We now employ 3.5 million people,” Shah said.
“The first half of 2013 is looking very promising as far as the whole of the industry is concerned. You can see that from sales figures coming from the US, which is one of the major markets we cannot forget. Once upon a time the US market was 50 per cent of the goods from the Indian jewellery industry. So the consumer confidence in the US is coming good and demand has picked up.
“We have many people placing good orders so the US is going to be a very important market in 2013,” Shah said.
He explained that European trade was still low because “they are still not out of the crisis so it’s going to take a little more time. The Middle East is looking very promising and while China and Asia has been a little low we feel that after the New Year will be better off. The domestic market is on the increase so we expect a 15-20 per cent increase over last year.”