Chinese tourists to HK prefer diamond Gold and diamond jewels are expensive luxuries, but they have become affordable commodities for many Chinese tourists from the mainland.

According to Chow Sang Sang Jewelry's Causeway Bay branch manager surnamed Yip, the branch has experienced a rise of 30 percent in its number of mainland customers in December alone.

"The number of the local tourists has remained unchanged. But the number of mainland tourists has risen by 30 percent. They mainly like to purchase 18-karat gold ornaments and Italian necklaces, although most of them go for diamonds," he said, adding that such ornaments have been the favorites of the mainland tourists in the past few years.

Another company, Luk Fook Holdings (International) Ltd, has also recorded a 30-percent jump in customers during the Christmas Season, with mainlanders accounting for 20 to 30 percent of its customer base.

"On average, the mainland tourists spend a few hundreds to 5, 000 HK dollars (US$ 640). They mainly love to purchase diamonds, but they buy gold as well," said the manager of the Causeway Bay branch of Luk Fook Holdings (International Ltd), who is surnamed Fung.

Asked about the style of the ornaments the mainland tourists like, Fung said their taste is quite in-trend, similar to that of the local Hong Kong people.

Huge demand for diamond in China

Last year's statistics from China's diamond industry showed a 40-percent rise in the country's market demand. With an annual worth of 10 billion yuan (US$ 1.3 billion) being created, China ranked second in the world in diamond processing and market sales volume, the People's Daily reported earlier.

Meanwhile, the World Gold Council and its local partners plan to launch a larger campaign to promote gold jewelry in China's mainland in early 2002, with Shanghai as the center.

"We have selected Shanghai as a major city in Asia to promote the new image of gold jewelry," said Helen Mao, the council's regional manager for eastern China.

Analysts forecast a huge growth in demand for gold in China, where 102.5 tons were consumed in 2000.

Jewelry Business Expands Rapidly in China

Owing to the Chinese people's growing purchase power on jewels, Jewelry business has been expanding rapidly in China in the past two decades and the country had possessed more than 500 designated state-run jewelry making enterprises and over 1,000 overseas-financed jewelry processing companies by 2000.

Sources from a recent national jewelry exhibition said that more than 10,000 companies are engaged in retailing of jewelry, and the jewelry industry has offered jobs to over 800,000 people.

The annual retail sales of jewelry exceeds 80 billion yuan (about US$ 9.64 billion), said the sources.

Hk's Jewelry Market

As for Hong Kong's jewelry manufacturing strength, a survey found about 40 percent of Hong Kong companies interviewed are original design manufacturing (ODM) manufacturers and the percentage is expected to grow in the coming years.

The key attractions of Hong Kong products are quick delivery, innovative design and good quality, the survey said.

However, the survey also gave a warning that Hong Kong jewelry manufacturers may face keener competition with their mainland counterparts after it joins WTO.

( People's Daily December 28, 2001)