The international gemstone industry is so large that the United States Jewelry Industry alone is worth over US$78 billion, and has continued to grow. According to available information, the gemstone import from Myanmar in 2014 was worth US$12.3billion. The Gem and Jewelry District of Antwerp in Belgium is a business worth £31billion a year. The Gemstone Industry in India employs about 1,000,000 players.
In Africa, South Africa, Zambia, and Mauritius are significant importers of gemstones. With this high demand for gemstones, Nigeria has the potential to grow its economy through the gemstones sector.
Despite these, however, the business sector of the gemstone industry in Nigeria does not contribute its quota of income generation to the nation. To ensure an effective gemstone value chain development, the sector must be overhauled by developing incentives that will revive the sector and accelerate its growth and development. This will include provision of adequate facilities to promote testing the quality of minerals.
According to the document, in view of the myriad of problems and challenges facing the gemstone sector, RMRDC has put in place a number of programmes and projects to complement other initiatives by government bodies and private sector operatives to overhaul the gemstone value chain in Nigeria. The investment arm of the council which is known as Business Innovations Centre (BIC) has formed a partnership with Aku Engineering Limited and Mina Stones Ltd to establish a Gemstone Buying Centre at the African University of Science and Technology (AUST), Abuja. The gemstone buying centre would create a standard market that brings together gemstone producers and buyers when commissioned. Already, the centre has been very active in providing services to its customers. A number of gemstone miners and buyers would now depend on its services to concretise arrangements and prices. Furthermore, in order to improve the value of gemstones in the market, a lapidary had been set up since 2016 in collaboration with Mina Stones Ltd and FIRAM Investment Ltd for which with the collaborators a special purpose vehicle, called Century Cuts Ltd, was established.
To further promote activities in this sector, the council in collaboration with a number of other partners started the African Gemstones and Jewellery Exhibition and Seminar (AGJES) as an annual event to showcase the best of Nigerian and African gemstones, precious metals and jewellery. Currently, it is the only programme in the country that brings over 200 jewellers, gemstone suppliers and gem-mining industry experts together once a year to network, share business ideas, showcase trends and shape the outlook for the future of the industry. The effort is gradually overhauling the gemstone value chain in Nigeria in several ways. It is providing training for miners and avenues for bringing together buyers and sellers, thus creating avenues for genuine investors to procure gemstones.
