Gem Traders Unfazed by Burma Turmoil

Hong Kong jadeite traders say their clientele doesn't care where stones come from, and they have stock to tide them over interruptions in supply

by Wilson Lau

A customer examines jade at the 8th Beijing International Jewellery Fair on July 19, 2007 in Beijing, China. Photo by Guang Niu/Getty Images

After the bloody September crackdown on dissidents, Buddhist monks are again on the march in Burma, denouncing the military government. As the crisis deepens, Western opponents of the military regime have singled out China for criticism, charging that Beijing props up the junta through purchases of fuel resources. However Chinese businessmen in Hong Kong and the mainland provide another, less visible form of support: trade in jadeite gemstones. The export of jadeite from Burma to Hong Kong and China, which has been going on for decades with little media scrutiny, is worth about $433.2 million a year, official figures for 2006 show.

That's 10% of the country's total exports, making jadeite sales vital to the Burmese government. And the figure doesn't include the hundreds of millions of dollars raised from sales of smuggled goods to Hong Kong and China. Where official sales are concerned, two departments of the regime at present conduct six auctions a year, selling hundreds of millions of dollars worth of rough stones and polished pieces of this rare, more highly valued form of jade.

Forthcoming Auction Postponed

But future sales are now in doubt. One of the organizers of the auction, the Myanmar Gems Enterprise (MGE), a unit of the Ministry of Mines, has already twice postponed its upcoming auction, which was originally scheduled for the last week of October. Although no official reason has been given, traders in Hong Kong speculate that the delay is a result of the country's political turmoil; the authorities, they believe, do not want foreigners entering the country while unrest continues.

A fax sent by the Burmese Consulate to a Hong Kong jadeite trade association says "the auction [will be] suspended for a week…from 14 November to 26 November." Kwok Man Chan, chairman of the Hong Kong Jade Assn., says the new schedule has not yet been confirmed by the consulate.

Certainly, some companies are not eager to conduct business-as-usual with the Burmese regime following the crackdown against peaceful demonstrations led by Buddhist monks in September. For instance, Cartier has announced that it will stop buying gemstones mined in Burma. And the Jewelers of America, a national association of jewelers, has urged Congress to amend a law enacted in 2003 that bans all imports from Burma, because the ban has a loophole allowing gemstone traders to import Burmese gemstones if they have been cut and polished elsewhere.

Still, while the gemstone boycott is likely to subject any trade link with Burma to intensifying scrutiny, executives from several Hong Kong jadeite companies say they are not worried. Provided the political situation in Burma does not worsen, Hong Kong traders will continue purchasing rough jadeite at auctions in Burma and selling the jewelry in Hong Kong and China, they say. "Business and politics should be separate. We're just businessmen and not politicians," says Kim Wing Yau of Kam Wing Cheong Jewelry. A 30-year veteran of the jadeite trade, Yau is a former chairman of the Hong Kong Jadeware Trades Industry & Commerce Assn.

Thriving Black Market

The main jadeite jewelry markets are in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. And the Rangoon regime has leverage, since Burma is the only country in the world with deposits of the gem-grade jadeite so highly coveted by Chinese consumers. Apart from the highly prized green variety, jadeite is available in a broad range of colors, such as yellow, lavender, black and white. Moreover there are several categories, like "icy" and "glass," that denote the stone's varying levels of translucence.

In 2005 the Burmese government declared jadeite a "national treasure" and mandated that all jadeite sales be centralized through auctions organized in Rangoon by the MGE. Because of the rising demand for jadeite from consumers in China, the junta has increased the number of MGE jadeite auctions to four from two.