Lahore, February 10: Rising prices of gold and gold-made jewellery may affect the gold jewellery business thus Pakistani Jewellery Industry must also concentrate on alternative metals for jewellery production. This was the crux of a seminar titled, ‘alternative metals for jewellery’ organized by Pakistan Gems and Jewellery Development Company (PGJDC) at its Gems and Jewellery Training & Manufacturing Centre (GJTMC) in Lahore today.

Dr. Shahzad Alam, Project Director PITMAEM-PCSIR said that apart from using gold, jewellery industry can also work on semi-precious metals such as silver, alpaca, copper, brass, bronze, titanium and precious metal clay for making the jewellery. He said that such jewellery is in great demand worldwide due to its low price and better quality.

He informed the audience how different metals can be combined to create favorable combinations for better quality jewellery. He said that as we have witnessed a steep rise in gold prices and subsequent down trend in gold jewellery consumption worldwide as well as at domestic front, its imperative for Pakistani jewellery industry to consider the alternative metals for producing the jewellery because this way they would not only avoid the possible slow down in their business but would continue to expand their business by producing jewellery in other low-priced metals.

He said that there is huge demand of artificial jewellery worldwide and Pakistani jewellery exporters can tap the huge potential and establish their brands in artificial jewellery as well.

Pakistan Gems and Jewellery Development Company (PGJDC) also organized a Seminar on Monday in Lahore titled “Latest Trends in Assaying and Refining” in which experts said that Pakistani Jewellery Industry must equip itself with the latest techniques and trends being used in gold refining and assaying worldwide to make its products competitive and attractive for foreign markets.

Mr. Abdul Sattar, Chief Executive ROOP NIKHAR and precious metals refining consultant was the key note speaker. Mr. Abdul Sattar informed that currently several methods of refining gold are being used in the industry, but two methods are most commonly used in our trade, which are Inquartations & parting and Aqua Regia refining process. He described both the process in detail to the audience belonging to Gems and Jewellery Industry of Pakistan. He also discussed the process of Assaying and said that Assaying is an accurate determination of an element in a given sample. In the case of jewellery, assaying is an accurate determination of the precious metal content in an alloy. There are three main methods of assaying the jewellery samples: first is Cupellation (used for gold determination), second Titration (used for silver determination) and third is inductively coupled plasma Optical emission spectrometry.

He informed the audience that hallmarking is used to indicate the fineness (purity) of jewellery or ornamental article made of platinum, gold or silver. The hall marks are small markings stamped on gold, silver and platinum articles.