Jewellery & Gem World Hong Kong, which is a significant annual event for jewelers around the world, will be remembered this year for low sales amid high prices. Despite high visitors’ interest, a rather weak presence of Chinese buyers was noted compared to previous years.
The fair was held at AsiaWorld-Expo (AWE) from September 16 to 20 and at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre from September 18 to 22. Official attendance figures will be released later.
Sales at the Hong Kong show are usually dominated by mainland Chinese traders, but this year the ongoing housing crisis, a typhoon in Shanghai that caused many flight delays, a national festival that coincided with the first days of AWE, and new customs regulations in China all put off many from any purchases. Observers say Chinese buyers were playing it safe out of fear that they would not be able to import pearls into China, and many simply refrained from buying.
The lively sales at the fair were in the lab-grown diamond section. Buyers, who came from all over Asia, were particularly interested in larger stones and a variety of colors. However, prices were not the main factor in transactions.
Prices for colored gemstones and cultured pearls, meanwhile, remained high. Allen Kleiman of A. Kleiman and Company said larger, top-quality rubies were hard to come by, and that prices for rough rubies and sapphires were still shockingly high. “The prices of unheated blues are already crazy; there’s just no more room for them to go up,” he said.
As for cultured pearls, prices for white South Sea and Tahitian pearls have dropped slightly, but prices for fine Japanese Akoya are holding steady. The last Akoya pearl auctions in Japan ran from January to April 2024, and these were the goods sold at AWE. Yuichi Nakamura, CEO of PJ Nakamura International in Japan, speaks frequently with Japanese farmers and knows their costs have risen. “Prices of akoya pearls are up between 20% to 30%,” he explained at his booth. “Last year buyers were grabbing pearls at the show, but this year they’re more careful.”
Hélène Tarin, Editor-in-Chief of the Asian Bureau, Rough&Polished
