The Hindu Business Line : Hazira jewellery park promoters upbeat on exports

THE sceptics may scoff but the writing on the wall says gems and jewellery exports from India could be close to $24 billion (Rs 1 lakh crore) by 2007. This is in contrast to the target of $16 billion that has been put out by the Gems and Jewellery Export Promotion Council (GJEPC) for the same period.

The revised target comes from the promoters of the gems and jewellery special economic zone (SEZ), set to come up over the next two years or so in Hazira. Gems and jewellery exports from the country had registered an unprecedented 31 per cent growth in 2003-04 at $11.9 billion against $9.1 billion that it posted in the previous fiscal. As a percentage of the country's total exports, this sector accounted for 17 per cent share.

Mr Nanubahi Vanani, President, Surat Diamond Association, told Business Line that the figures were no exaggeration as there was hard money from businessmen to back his claims.

He was the principal mover behind the Gujarat Hira Bourse (GHB) that has joined hands with the Union and Gujarat governments to set up the 20-lakh sq.m. exclusive gem and jewellery park in Hazira. The park, whose feasibility study was conducted by Ernst & Young, was expected to be up and running by 2006, he said.

"As many as 340 jewellery manufacturers who hope to add value to diamonds, otherwise shipped outside the country for such work, have already paid the Hira Bourse Rs 5 lakh each. This Rs 17-crore corpus will form the seed capital for the jewellery park where the Union Government is expected to invest Rs 75 crore. We are also sitting on cheques worth Rs 5 crore from 100 other prospective jewellers but they will have to wait their turn," Mr Vanani said.

The park has earmarked half of the area towards a SEZ for value-added diamond jewellery, with five-lakh sq.m. each set to go towards a domestic zone and residential zone, respectively. The Gujarat Government's stake in the Rs 250-crore project is expected to come mostly by way of the land that has already been acquired by the Gujarat Industries Development Corporation (GIDC).

"The park is expected to be up and running in the next two years' time and has the capacity to do business worth Rs 5,000 crore. There is no doubt in our mind that the current revenue from this sector, which now stands at $11.9 billion, would be doubled in the next three years," Mr Vanani said.

However, he agrees that a major criterion in making these plans succeed would be the speedy commissioning of the Surat airport. With the Rs 35-crore airport runway development project already under way and the Union Government allocating an additional Rs 20 crore from the cluster development fund - the same source as that for the gem and jewellery park, the ball may be well and truly rolling for the biggest diamond park of its kind.

Ultimately, the key to the puzzle may be in the export target of $16 billion for 2007, which according to the GJEPC Chairman, Mr Sanjay Kothari, would come regardless of whether the proposed jewellery park at Hazira takes off or not.

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