STRAIGHT ANSWERS

george punnose, regional officer, new delhi, gem & jewellery export promotion council (gjepc), on the seminar held in chandigarh to encourage gem and jewellery exports. what is the purpose of this seminar and the aims of the council? the council aims at promoting gem and jewellery exports and provides information and help to its 7,000 members by passing down financial and other benefits from the ministry of commerce to the exporters. we liaise with the ministry and communicate to our members through our bulletin. our members also get various benefits - when they want to source gold, they come to us, we direct them to appointed agencies, and they get the gold duty-free. we also tell them about exhibitions being held around the world. this seminar intends to make jewellers aware of the benefits and facilities they can avail of. the council, through its five regional offices (kolkata, delhi, jaipur, surat and chennai) is organising such seminars in various cities. we also hold a domestic exhibition annually in mumbai just for the trade so they can interact with each other. any financial help? the ministry reimburses a certain cost of the ticket if an exporter is going to participate in an exhibition. in some cases, even the cost of the stall is reimbursed. there is also thrust on latin american countries so anyone visiting these countries stands to get around 90 per cent of the ticket cost reimbursed. what do the exports stand at? in 1966, when the gjepc was founded, it had 50-60 members and exports of about rs 20 crore. now we have 7,000 members and exports of $7.7 billion (2000-2001). this year however (2001-2002), the figure will be lower as the figure from april-september is just $ 3.3 billion. why the drop? is it due to the general recession? it is because the usa is india's largest buyer, followed by countries such as belgium and japan. the majority of our exports are diamonds (of the $7.7 billion figure, diamonds contribute $6.3 billion, gold is $1.1). what is india's strength? efficient artisans and cheap labour. india imports diamonds, processes and finishes them and then exports them. geetika_bhandari@indiatimes.com