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Wednesday, 18th January 2006 (6098 views)

Local industry leaders hope Turkey will soon become the world's biggest gold jewellery production centre, local newspaper Zaman reports.

While global leader Italy's gold jewellery production is shrinking, Turkey's production has been growing for the last 15 years after the government privatised gold import laws and permitted gold banking.

The country directly exported and shuttle traded 84 tons of gold jewellery in 2005, with the figure targeted to rise to 100 tons this year.

On current gold prices, that would allow Turkey to pull in $4 billion from exports and sales to tourists in 2006 - up from $3 billion last year.

Turkey's current success story owes partly to Anatolia's historical reputation as a global jewellery production centre. But onlookers argue the country has also been helped by a new attitude to jewellery design.

"In recent years, the act of following the jewellery trends abroad has begun to be replaced by activities to create and lead the fashion in the jewellery world," said Murat Akman, the World Gold Council's general director in Turkey.

Mr Akman says the next five years will prove crucial if Turkey is to steal Italy's crown.

Italy currently boasts a 30 per cent share of the total jewellery export market.

 

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