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Gold council to aid exports
Why in the news ?
- The Centre has decided to set up a Domestic Council for Gold to aid exports of jewellery and to create an ecosystem to harness the true potential for jewellery making in the country.
Details
- The council would work towards industry development, job creation, building of regional clusters and strengthening of value chains.
- The aim of the council is to form an association at the national level which could consist of members from states regional associations.
- The domestic council would work on all the issues including for exports and pushing the growth of the sector at domestic level.
- Council will represent all the jewellers of India who will be the electoral college. They will form different interest groups and elect those who will sit in the council.
- The artisans from various parts of the country, specially from villages will be helped by jewellery designers to come out with products with better value, which will be ultimately exported by big companies.
- The Gem and Jewellery Export Promotion Council (GJEPC) and the Centre were working together to formulate a strategy to achieve the desired objective.
- A Coordination Committee will be set up comprising senior officials of the Ministry and the gem and jewellery industry, who will meet monthly to ensure that industry concerns are addressed on priority.
Gems and jewellery sector
- The labour-intensive sector contributes about 14 per cent to the country’s overall export.
- The country’s gems and jewellery exports contracted by 8 per cent to about USD 32.72 billion in 2017-18 owing to demand slowdown in major markets, including the US.
- According to the Gems and Jewellery Export Promotion Council (GJEPC) data, exports stood at USD 35.47 billion in 2016-17.
- The drop in shipments is mainly due to negative growth in the export of silver jewellery; gold medallions and coins along with a sharp rise in the return of consignments.
Source
The Hindu, Indian Express