By the middle of the month, the monsoon will be here. For the gem and jewellery business too, May will bring forth a flood of mid year trade shows and trade events on opposite sides of the globe, all of them significant in their importance to the trade.

Let’s start with the western half of the globe. In the United States, the action will kick off in Las Vegas, where the two most important trade fairs, the G.L.D.A. and the JCK Show-Las Vegas will bring about a buying frenzy as retailers in the world’s biggest market scramble to place orders to replenish depleting inventories with the fresh look of the coming fall-winter season goods.

In Europe, the excitement hinges around the Italian gold town of Vicenza where its Summer Show ‘Charm’ opens its doors to the buyers from all over the world. The fair has been given new direction by its organisers who have been moving to take the Italian styles to the third millennium.

Anthony Brooke, a veteran in the Thai gem and jewellery industry, is trying really hard to alleviate the negative impact the US Tom Lantos Block Burmese JADE Act is having on local exports. Anthony Brooke, deputy director for public relations of the Thai Gem and Jewellery Traders Association, is working alongside other associations and government officials to mitigate the negative impact of a US law banning Burmese gemstones on Thai exports.

The gem and jewellery sector is currently one of the country’s top-three foreign-exchange earners, with overall 2008 shipments amounting to more than US$8.2 billion (Bt290 billion). The industry employs more than 1.1 million workers in the upstream, midstream and downstream sectors. Of the total, 726,000 workers are employed in the upstream sector, which involves gem heating, cutting and polishing.

The midstream sector, which includes jewellery design, casting, setting, polishing, quality control and packing, employs about 400,000 workers. The downstream sector - distribution and sales - has about 40,000 workers.

During the first quarter of 2009, shipments to the United States, the largest market for Thai gems and jewellery, accounting for 25-30 per cent of the sector’s exports, fell 40.2 per cent to $155.3 million, from $259 million in the same period last year.

“Besides the US economic recession, the export slump has been compounded by the ban on [Burmese] ruby,” says Brooke, who also runs a gem and jewellery outlet in Bangkok. Rubies and other Burmese gemstones account for about 20 per cent of the raw materials used by the Thai jewellery industry.

“There is also a big impact on employment in Thailand as many operators have had to lay off workers. Since last year, up to 100,000 people have lost their jobs, with significant losses in Mae Sot and other border towns where there used to be large numbers of gem-cutters, polishers etc,” he adds.

In addition, the United States’ Tom Lantos law is not consistent with the World Trade Organisation’s provisions on the origin of products since Burmese gemstones used in Thai jewellery undergo substantial transformation and therefore should be regarded as Thai products.

In a bid to redress the situation, the TGJTA has urged the government to negotiate with Washington to review the law. In addition, it has backed its counterpart associations in the US, comprising importers and retailers of Thai jewellery, to help lobby for legislative changes.