Dubai jewellery trade cited as model

Dubai: The head of one of the world's leading gemmological institutes says the rapid transition of Dubai's jewellery retail trade into a highly self-regulated market should be replicated throughout the Middle East.

Roland Lorie, CEO of Belgium-based International Gemological Institute (IGI), says the emirate's traders have quickly developed a strong culture of certification, where the quality of diamonds, coloured stones and jewellery pieces is graded and displayed to consumers.

The overall number of certificates produced by specialist laboratories such as the IGI has increased by more than 20 per cent annually in the region over the last four years. On a global scale, the IGI grades more than one million diamonds and coloured stones each year.

"Dubai has a very definite culture of certification which has seen it develop into an internationally-recognised centre for the jewellery retail industry," Lorie told Gulf News on a visit to the IGI's Dubai office. "This model should be used as an example for other Middle Eastern countries such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait."

"People buying diamonds want them to be certified by an independent organisation as it gives them greater confidence in what they are buying. Dubai's professionalism in this respect has seen it attract consumers from all over the world."

The trend is a far cry from Dubai's former marketplace, where people seeking an opinion on the quality of an item were forced to trust the judgment of individual traders.

Many were keen to cling onto a system that allowed them to achieve higher margins by selling to end consumers whose knowledge of diamond quality was limited. Certification of their merchandise was seen as an unnecessary expense.

Statistics show that the UAE market share in terms of polished diamond consumption amounts to $300 million, with the total Gulf market growing at a rate of three to five per cent per annum.

According to Lorie, the main reason for Dubai's transition was the work of the Dubai Gold and Jewellery Group (DGJG), an organisation representing more than 700 manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers.

K.P. Baiju, DGJG's general manager, said Dubai emerged from traditional ways in 1997 when the DGJG began to organise a series of training and development sessions in association with leading gem institutes to educate retailers in diamond grading and industry best practices.

"Retailers really had no choice but to meet the international standards that were developing at the time in an ever more competitive industry.

"The emphasis on education was basically a confidence-building measure. It created a pool of experts who could handle diamonds with confidence, which was passed on to the consumer."

Baiju stressed that the education process is on-going, with approximately 1,500 individual retailers passing through its training programme every year.