SJC is the second firm in the industry trying to ship jewelries abroad besides Phu Nhuan Jewelry Company (PNJ).
Do Cong Chinh, general director of SJC, said that his enterprise wassending small batches to Europe to explore the market before executinglarger orders from foreign buyers. SJC will sign processing contractswith foreign partners to make shipments with bigger values in the nearfuture, Chinh said.
Many foreign customers have already signedcontracts with SJC after examining the processing technology and pricesoffered by the local company.
SJC has sought permission fromthe central bank to import materials temporarily for re-export toprocess jewelry for partners. Chinh deems this practice as the best waynow as it is very difficult to compete with rivals from Thailand andHong Kong who enjoy lower gold prices and have more advanced processingtechnologies.
PNJ is a jewelry exporter with steady exportsdone over the years. However, Nguyen Thi Cuc, deputy general director ofthe company, reported that jewelry export revenue only contributed some6 percent to her company’s total while the export profits were low.
After an export tax rate of 10 percent was slapped on jewelry productshaving gold content of less than 99.99 percent, foreign customers havebecome lukewarm to high-value home-made jewelry items.
PNJearns around 12.5-13 million USD from jewelry exports annually while itsjewelry exports generated up to 29 million USD in the first five monthsof 2010 when jewelry exports by local firms were strong due to softerdomestic gold prices then.
According to the Vietnam GoldBusiness Association, as other Asian countries apply jewelry exportduties of zero percent, their export values of gold and jewelry productsalways stay high. Gold jewelry exports by Thailand average out at about3 billion USD annually, the association said.-VNA