Zim Gemstones’ potential to become a Billion dollar industry
The semi-precious and coloured gemstones industry has the potential to become a multi-billion dollar industry if the vision of players in the sector is to be adopted and polished for implementation, CT Mining CEO Brandon Thom has said.
Rudairo Mapuranga
According to Thom, the country should come up with a market and beneficiation centre where gemstones are traded freely and openly and can replicate China’s Wuzhou Gemstone City which is currently averaging an annual revenue of nearly US$8 billion.
Thom said Zimbabwe has the advantage of being able to produce the stones therefore setting up a gemstone hub was going to be of significance for the country’s economic growth and development.
“First as a Zimbabwean, I should appreciate that we are net producers of these products, therefore product beneficiation should come into play. We can appreciate the value after beneficiation, the market is there and the appetite is there. This is a multi-million dollar industry at current but through beneficiation, we can scale it up to over a billion. There is a province in China which was built on a billion dollar gap (gemstones), there are not even producers but have an established a market,” Thom said.
Gemstone processing has a history of more than 20 years in Wuzhou. The city produces Cubic zirconia, corundum, spinel,