- The Great Imperial Crown – the masterpiece of the russian jewellery art presented in Moscow
- Alrosa Produces 7.5 Mln Carats in Q1, Sales Up to $1.22 Bln
- Jewellery retail has grown by 19 % in 2011
- Moscow Bourse Bringing Buyers to Diamond Week in Israel
- Russia: What the Buyer Economizes on and How He Puts on the Ritz
A press conference “The Position of the Guild of Jewellers of Russia on the Draft of the Federal Law “On Amendments to the Legislative Acts of the RF”, prepared by the Ministry of Finance, was held in the Guild of Jewellers of Russia.
The Chairman of the Board of the “Guild of Jewellers of Russia” Association Gagik G. Gevorkyan and the Deputy Director General of the “Guild of Jewellers of Russia” Association Valery Borisovich Radashevich answered the journalists’ questions.
They stressed the need for the return of the state control over the country’s jewellery industry, noting that it must touch the entire "chain": from mining of precious metals and stones to direct activities of retail stores. And this measure, in despite of mistaken opinion, is not directed against the retail trade, but on the contrary – is aimed at protecting all the market participants from unfair players. “Our task is, together with the representatives of the trade, to put the industry in order”, said Valery Radashevich.
As the speakers reported, during the meeting at the Ministry of Finance of the RF, an agreement on the establishment of a working group with participation of representatives of the Guild of Jewellers of Russia, the Assay Chamber of Russia, non-governmental organizations: all-Russian public organization Delovaya Rossiya, the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP), and many others, was reached.
“The jewellery business and the state have set common goals”, Gagik Gevorkyan emphasized. “We ask the state to protect us from smuggling and we want to take an active part in the development of measures of state control over the jewellery industry. We, jewellers, know the industry inside and out and we are ready to help the state officials in developing effective decisions. In particular, it is necessary to determine what should be controlled and in what way. Derestriction, according to the Chairman of the Board of the Guild, would inevitably bring to chaos, allowing the foreign companies to conquer the Russian market, to the detriment of domestic producers, who would be deprived of fair competition.
The Guild of Jewellers of Russia unconditionally supports the state monopoly on jewellery branding, taking clear and principled position on this issue and rejecting any idea of the establishment of any alternative assay bodies. Such monopoly guarantees consumers’ confidence in domestic jewellers’ production.
The Guild of Jewellers of Russia put forward the following initiatives for the development of measures of state control over the jewellery industry:
- The need to define the validity of measures of state control and to make the exhaustive list of such measures;
- Exclusion from the list of grounds for an unscheduled inspection "threat to property of natural and legal persons, state and municipal property";
- Bringing inspectors’ powers in accordance with Law FZ-294;
- Legal confirmation of possibility of expansion of tests required for jewellery production;
- To make a proposal on inclusion into the bill, while preparing it for the first and second readings, the opportunity (according to the contract with a foreign partner) of decision-making on the release from the Russian Federation the jewellery, sampled by Assay inspections, without a state hallmark;
- To introduce an importer’s manufacturer's stamp (responsibility mark);
- Implementation of sampling and hallmarking of imported jewellery at the importer’s place of registration;
- It is necessary to exempt from compulsory refining purchased scrap and reversible wastes of the jewellery industry;
- The way of transportation of private-owned jewellery and semi-finished products is determined by the owner of the transported values.