NEW DELHI: More than 100 Indian jewelers traveled to Jeddah this week to participate in the inaugural Saudi Arabia Jewelry Exposition (SAJEX), as the industry looks to diversify export markets in response to US President Donald Trump\u2019s hefty tariffs on goods from India.<\/p>\n
As part of his ongoing global trade war, Trump doubled the total duty on Indian exports to 50 percent last month, citing New Delhi\u2019s continued purchases of Russian oil as a reason.<\/p>\n
With the levies \u2014 the highest in Asia and among the greatest ever imposed on a major trading partner by any American administration \u2014 expected to hit labor-intensive sectors such as gems and jewelry, the industry\u2019s apex body in India is now working to find alternative markets to offset their impact.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn our sector, the US accounted for 30 percent of our exports \u2026 because of the tariffs by the US, now all exporters are forced to look at new markets (to) offset the losses from the US,\u201d Kewal Krishan Duggal, director of policy at India\u2019s Gem and Jewelry Export Promotion Council, told Arab News.<\/p>\n
India\u2019s annual gems and jewelry exports are worth about $28.5 billion, and constitute the country\u2019s third-largest US export sector. The industry employs around five million workers.<\/p>\n
This week, GJEPC India launched SAJEX 2025, a three-day jewelry exhibition held at the Jeddah Superdome, in an effort to connect jewelry exports from India and other countries with Saudi buyers.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a good scope to capture that market \u2026 We see Saudi as a very big market and a gateway to the markets in Africa,\u201d Duggal said.<\/p>\n
SAJEX, which concluded on Saturday, was organized in cooperation with the Consulate General of India in Jeddah and the Embassy of India in Riyadh and supported by Invest Saudi and the Chambers of Commerce of Jeddah and Makkah.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Saudi market is opening up and it will be good for the local trade to network with our industry for growth prospects,\u201d GJEPC chair Kirit Bhansali told Arab News, adding that his organization is hoping to develop SAJEX into the \u201cgem and jewelry trading hub\u201d of the Middle East.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are looking at collaborations to explore the market. Saudi Arabia, with four billion dollars of jewelry demand, has the potential to double that in a very short time. Collaboration with leaders in gem and jewelry countries like India will help the Saudi industry too.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Kingdom is a \u201cvery large market\u201d for gems and jewelry, said Dr. Suhel Ajaz Khan, Indian Ambassador to Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom a (consumer) perspective, it is the largest market in the region. India is a leading exporter of gems and jewelry in the world, (but) currently India\u2019s share in the Saudi market is modest,\u201d he told Arab News.<\/p>\n
\u201cSAJEX will help connect India\u2019s jewelers and designers with Saudi buyers. It will enhance trade and joint collaborations,\u201d he continued. \u201cSuch collaborations strengthen the overall economic partnership between India and Saudi Arabia.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NEW DELHI: More than 100 Indian jewelers traveled to Jeddah this week to participate in the inaugural Saudi Arabia Jewelry Exposition (SAJEX), as the industry looks to diversify export markets in response to US President Donald Trump\u2019s hefty tariffs on goods from India. As part of his ongoing global trade war, Trump doubled the total …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":86721,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-86708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86708"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86708\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":86723,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86708\/revisions\/86723"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}