China's commercial hub Shanghai has sped up training of jewelry appraisers to meet the growing demands for senior professionals from its jewelry stores, pawnshops, auctioneers and insurance companies.

The eastern China metropolis has more than 300 jewelry stores, 50 pawnshops and over 70 auctioneers, but only five qualified jewelry appraisers, according to Zhou Yi, general manager of a leading jewelry company in downtown Shanghai.

Zhou is one of the first 16 trainees to attend courses at the city's vocational training center to become qualified jewelry appraisers.

They have received intensive training over the past six months under the international Anna Miller certification system and are expected to become China's first generation of internationally certified appraisers after they pass tests at the end of the program.

Zhou's classmates include bosses from time-honored jewelry stores in Shanghai, professors from the elite Jiaotong and Tongji universities and appraisers from local appraisal organizations. They will be involved in formulating a set of professional standards to guide future jewelry appraisers in the city.

It used to be difficult for Shanghai's jewelry merchants to tell the true value of a piece of jewelry. "It all depends on the experience, or rather, the feeling, of the evaluator himself," said Tang Yuanjun, head of the Shanghai Zhongbao Jewelry Appraisal Center.

Tang said the city was calling for more qualified appraisers as more businesses were doing jewelry trade and more consumers could afford jewelry.

"A qualified jewelry appraiser should also know something about how auctioneers and pawnshops work, and have a say in legal affairs such as how to authenticate valuables and how to share the property in case of a dispute," Tang said.

In addition, a qualified appraiser should be able to tell the history of rare jewelry, how many of them exist in number, and their dynamic changes of value in the international market in order to bolster the sound development of the jewelry trading industry, say trainers with the Shanghai vocational training center.

(eastday.com December 14, 2003)