DOHA: Local jewellers and bullion industry are critical of the quality certification process for imported gold and ornaments and say the exercise is cumbersome and time-consuming and adversely impacting their business.
Qatar imports all its bullion requirements, and nearly 98 percent of jewellery sold in the local market is imported too, say market operators.
It takes between two to three weeks for a consignment of imported gold or jewellery to be certified for quality by Qatar’s standards and specifications agency.
And sometimes the Qatar General Authority for Standards and Metrology, responsible for issuing certificates of compliance to local quality standards, even takes 28 days to clear a consignment.
Market operators claim that in the neighbouring countries such a process takes barely a day or two.
“Because of such delays we are losing our customers. Most of them are going to neighbouring countries to buy latest gold jewelry,” a jewellery store official was quoted by Al Sharq as saying.
Since imported stocks take time to be cleared for quality, jewelers say their showrooms are unable to display latest jewelry which is in demand and that drives potential buyers away.
This is affecting cash flows of jewelers and bullion traders who, according to industry insiders, issue advance cheques to suppliers. “As a result, we face difficulties in meeting our financial commitments,” said a jeweler. “If there are no or little sales where is the cash going to come from?”
Market operators say that while the local bullion industry has vastly expanded in the past 15 years and the number of jewellers has gone up nearly six times, the quality certification procedures remain archaic and unchanged.
In 2000, there were an estimated 50 bullion and jewelry shops in the country, with their number having multiplied to 300 presently. The annual trade in gold and jewelry here is currently estimated at a whopping 10 tons.
Quality certification for gold and jewelry is not free. For a kilogram of imported gold (or its equivalent of jewelry), to be certified for quality, one needs to cough up QR7,500 as fee to the state’s standards agency. That adds up to QR75m ($20.6m) a year just by way of the fees collected by the agency for certifying the quality of imported gold and jewelry.
Each bullion and jewelry outlet in the country handles about 300kg of gold a year on average, market sources told Al Sharq.
Contacted by this newspaper for comment, Assistant Undersecretary at the Ministry of Environment in-charge of laboratory affairs, Dr Mohamed Saif Al Kuwari, who also heads the Qatar General Authority for Standards and Metrology, said he will soon be sending in written response to the claims of bullion traders and jewelers.The Peninsula
