Today is Akshaya Tritiya, the first since the outbreak of the Covid -19 pandemic in the country about two years ago, and the gold gems and jewellery market is upbeat about a much better business in this festive season.

Talking to The Statesman, Babloo Dey, working president of Swarna Shilpa Bachao Committee has informed that the industry has been expecting a hike of about 10-15 per cent business on this Akshaya Tritiya.

“Though the business is yet to peak at the pre-Covid levels, but is slowly climbing up.We hope that this Akshaya Tritiya the business will further peak,” Babloo Dey added.

There has been an issue of transportation, but that has been recently solved. “Now, the only matter of concern is the volatile gold rate due to the Ukraine war. Once the gold rate becomes steady there will be further boost in the business,” Mr Dey informed.

Price volatility is still acting as a headwind, but hope that due to restoration of normalcy, economic activity post-Covid era in the country will uplift the business in Akshaya Tritiya, feels Somasundaram PR, regional CEO of World Gold Council India.

The jewellery shops in the country have been closed due to Covid -19 pandemic and only few behemoths managed to sell through online orders. But in India, customers prefer to visit the shops and make their own choices for buying jewellery. So, store sales are more compared to online sales, says Mr Dey.

This year the sales have been increasing during the wedding and festive seasons, feels Saurabh Gadgil, MD of PN Gadgil Jewellers.

There are about 18,000 gold jewellery shops spread over Kolkata and the state and over a crore of people are directly and indirectly related to the business. As the Kolkata gold, diamond and platinum jewellery market has lot of market potential in recent times a lot of Indian and internationally reputed companies have set up multiple retail shops in the city.

There are about 4-5 lakh gold jewellery retailers in the country and over 6 million people are directly employed and with another two crore indirectly involved.

The gem and jewellery sector contributes to seven per cent of India’s GDP and the industry contributes about 16 per cent of India’s total merchandise exports, as per reports. The main export markets are USA, UAE and Hong Kong.