MAY 2, 2017

Registration for the 2017 congress of CIBJO, the World Jewelry Confederation, is now open. Delegates and other participants may register for the congress, as well as book hotel rooms, via a dedicated congress website located at:  http://www.cibjo.org/congress2017.

The 2017 CIBJO Congress will take place in Bangkok, Thailand, November 5-7, 2017, with pre-congress meetings beginning on November 2. The World Ruby Forum, which is being organised in conjunction with the congress, will take place November 4. The main venue for the CIBJO Congress and the official congress hotel will be the Shangri-La Bangkok.

The congress is being be hosted by the Department of International Trade Promotion (DITP) and the Gem and Jewelry Institute of Thailand (GIT), both of which fall under the jurisdiction of the Thai Ministry of Commerce.

The dedicated website includes the congress programme and important travel information. An online registration form for the congress is available, as is a link to the Shangri-La Bangkok booking service, which enables participant to book hotel rooms at a special congress rate. Since the CIBJO Congress 2017 will be a carbon neutral event, participants are also requested to complete a carbon footprinting form.

Information about programme being prepared for accompanying persons and pre and post-congress touring opportunities will be added at a later date.

As the official venue for the meeting of the CIBJO Assembly of Delegates, the CIBJO Congress will gather in Bangkok the members of national jewellery and gemstone associations from more than 40 countries and representatives of many of the industry’s most important commercial bodies. The congress also serves as a forum for CIBJO’s professional commissions, and is the venue at which its Diamond, Coloured Stones, Pearl, Coral, Precious Metals and Gemmological Blue Books are discussed and updated.

The CIBJO Congress is also where the programme of World Jewellery Confederation Education Foundation (WJCEF), relating to responsible and sustainable activities in the industry, and CIBJO’s ongoing cooperation with the United Nations and its development programme is reported upon.

APRIL 4, 2017

CIBJO, the World Jewellery Confederation, will hold its 2017 annual congress in Bangkok, Thailand, November 5-7, 2016, with pre-congress meetings beginning on November 2. The World Ruby Forum, which is being organised in conjunction with the congress, will take place November 4.

The congress will be hosted by the Department of International Trade Promotion (DITP) and the Gem and Jewellery Institute of Thailand (GIT), both of which fall under the jurisdiction of the Thai Ministry of Commerce. The official invitation to conduct the event in Bangkok was issued by Mrs. Apiradi Tantraporn, Thailand’s Minister of Commerce.

The main venue for the CIBJO Congress will be the renowned Shangri-La Bangkok, located on the banks of the Chao Phraya River, the major waterway that flows through Thailand’s capital city.

CIBJO Congresses serve as the official gathering place for the World Jewellery Confederation’s Assembly of Delegates, and also are the venue for the annual meetings of CIBJO’s sectoral commissions, where amendments can be introduced to the organisation’s definitive directories of international industry standards for diamonds, coloured stones, pearls, gem labs, precious metals and coral, known as the Blue Books.

The CIBJO Congress is also where the programme of World Jewellery Confederation Education Foundation (WJCEF), relating to responsible and sustainable activities in the industry, and CIBJO’s ongoing cooperation with the United Nations and its development programme is reported upon.

It is the second time that a CIBJO Congress will take place in Bangkok, with the first having been held in the city in 2004. Thailand is a leading world centre in the coloured gemstone and jewellery industries, reporting about $10 billion worth of exports per annum, with close to 16,000 companies employing some 1.3 million individuals. Jewellery and gemstones make up the country’s third largest export category.

“The fact that the CIBJO Congress is returning to Bangkok is a testament to Thailand’s central role in almost every category of our business, from mining all the way through to jewellery retail, not only in South East Asia, but globally as well,” said Gaetano Cavalieri, CIBJO President.  “We thank the Thai government for its generous invitation, as well as DITP and GIT, and invite members of the gem and jewellery sectors from around the world to join us, and to participate in our deliberations, which will impact on stakeholders along the entire chain of distribution. We also are honoured to be able to work in tandem with the World Ruby Forum, which in itself will be a milestone event.”

A dedicated CIBJO Congress 2017 website will be launched shortly.

APRIL 3, 2017

President Gaetano Cavalieri has met in Hong Kong with Semi Koroilavesau, the Minister of Fisheries of the Republic of Fiji, and during the meeting pledged the World Jewellery Confederation’s support for the South Pacific nation’s effort to develop its pearl industry as a standard bearer for environmental and social responsibility.

Fiji, which is a relative newcomer to the South Pacific pearl industry, is home to a growing perliculture sector, which in 2017 is forecast to produce about 30,000 pearls. The country’s Ministry of Fisheries, which has jurisdiction over the sector, is strategically committed to developing the economic potential of the country’s marine sources, while at the same time ensuring that that such activities are environmentally sustainable and have wide-ranging positive social impacts.

During the meeting Mr. Koroilavesau outlined the Fijian government’s long-term plan for its pearl sector, and reiterated its goal that the country become a significant producer of high-quality pearls, of distinctive appearance and character, for which the principles of social and environmental sustainability are an integral component of their brand identity. For the people of Fiji, he said, pearls are not simply jewels of the ocean, but they also represent the promise of a better and sustainable future.

“Fiji is as exciting prospect for our industry, and not only because of its already proven ability to produce pearls of exceptional quality,” said Dr. Cavalieri. “Its pearl industry will flourish also though the respect its shows for the marine environment, and through the support it provides the farming communities and their stakeholders. CIBJO is proud to be associated with such an enterprise.”

Mr. Koroilavesau invited Dr. Cavalieri to join the Fijian delegation at the World Oceans Day Session at the United Nations in New York on June 8, where its plan for an environmentally and socially sustainable national pearl sector will be publicly presented.

FEBRUARY 13, 2017

The latest editions of all six CIBJO Blue Books are now available for downloading from the CIBJO website.

The six CIBJO Blue Books are definitive sets of grading standards and nomenclature for diamonds, coloured gemstones, pearls, coral, precious metals, and gemmological laboratories. They are compiled and then are consistently reviewed and updated by the relevant CIBJO Commissions, whose members include representatives of trade organisations and laboratories active in the respective areas of the industry. In the almost complete absence of jewellery industry standards endorsed by the International Standards Organisation (ISO), the CIBJO Blue Books are the most widely accepted set of globally accepted standards.

The updated versions can be downloaded from the following page on the CIBJO website: http://www.cibjo.org/introduction-to-the-blue-books/.

For individuals who are not members of a CIBJO-member organisation, each individual download will cost 9.90 Swiss francs. All six Blue Books (Diamond Book, Gemstone Book, Pearl Book, Coral Book, Precious Metals Book and Gemmological Laboratories Book) can be downloaded as a single package at a discounted rate of 49.90 Swiss francs. For individuals who are members of an organisation that belongs to CIBJO, he or she is entitled to receive the CIBJO Blue Books free of charge. They should contact the organisation of which they are members to arrange delivery of the relevant Blue Books by email.

“The Blue Books are living documents, which are designed to facilitate a common language and benchmarks for members of our industry, irrespective of where they are located,” said Gaetano Cavalieri, President of CIBJO. “We update them from year to year, to reflect changing circumstances, new discoveries and developing technologies.”

“The area covered by the Blue Books is considerable, and they reflect the work done by a great many of our industry’s finest minds,” added Roland Naftule, President of CIBJO’s Sector A. “It is a massive task, and for that I would like to pay tribute to the many experts involved, and especially the presidents of the Sector A commissions and their steering committees.”

JANUARY 18, 2017

The requirement that all jewellery components be shown to have been responsibly and ethically sourced, handled and traded has become a central tenet of the luxury markets in the 21st Century, and it has led to the development of a service sector that provides the means and methods of ensuring the integrity of the supply chain. Compliance with accepted codes of practice is increasingly becoming a condition for doing business with some of the largest companies in the business.

For many members of the jewellery industry, the process of implementing and verifying compliance with codes of ethical practice can be daunting, and is a source of considerable anxiety. This is particularly the case with smaller and medium-sized companies, where the cost and effort of meeting requirements is perceived to be restrictive. To address such concerns and to provide a practical roadmap for businesses seeking to meet the challenge, the Italian Exhibition Group, CIBJO and Club degli Orafi will host a seminar during the VICENZAORO January trade show at Fiera di Vicenza. It will be the latest in a series of educational events organized by CIBJO and the Italian Exhibition Group, which is part of their programme, endorsed by the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), to support Corporate Social Responsibility and sustainability in the jewellery sector.

Entitled “Defending the Integrity of Jewellery’s Supply Chain,” the seminar will take place on Sunday, January 22, 2017, from 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM, in Room Tiziano B ( Hall 7.1) of the Fiera di Vicenza exhibition centre. Presented both in English and Italian, the moderator will be Dr. Gaetano Cavalieri, President of CIBJO.

Featuring a blue-panel ribbon of speakers, the seminar will deal with the practicalities of ensuring the integrity of the jewellery supply chain, from mine to market, covering the subjects of standards and codes of practice, third-party monitoring and auditing, and the certification of compliant companies. Among the organisations represented will be leading members of the responsible supply chain service sector, including the Responsible Jewellery Council, a key international standards-setting and certification organisation for the jewellery industry, and UL, one of the world’s largest providers of supply chain auditing and monitoring services. A special focus will be supply chain integrity in the precious metals sector.

Seminar speakers and panel members will include:

• Gaetano Cavalieri, President of CIBJO
• Matteo Marzotto, Vice Executive President of the Italian Exhibition Group
• Gabriele Aprea, President of Club degli Orafi
• Wilfried Hoerner, Chairman of the Responsible Jewellery Council and co-CEO at Argor-Heraeus SA, a leading Swiss precious metals refiner
• Andrew Bone, Executive Director of the of the Responsible Jewellery Council
• Francesca Angeloni, Business Development Manager for the Jewelry and Watch Industry in Europe at UL Consumer and Retail Services
• Daphne Guelker, Responsible Sourcing Program Manager at UL Consumer and Retail Services
• Marco Quadri, Director of Industrial Products at Argor-Heraeus SA

Gaetano Cavalieri, CIBJO President: “In the jewellery industry, where we work daily with precious objects, our reputation ultimately is our most valuable asset of all. Indeed, if our reputation is discounted, then so is everything else we do. And in today’s business environment, it is not enough just to do the right thing; you must be seen to be doing the right thing as well – not only to defend your own reputation, but also those of your colleagues up and down the chain of distribution. How practically to do that, in a fair and reasonable manner, will be the subject of this extremely important seminar.”

Matteo Marzotto, Vice Executive President: “The principles of CSR and sustainability in the gold and jewellery industries are constant themes at VICENZAORO, but this January’s show is focussing specifically on ‘Responsible Gold.’  The goal of the show, and particularly of the responsible-sourcing seminar on January 22, is not simply to pay lip-service to the concept, but to provide participants and visitors at the show with the knowledge and tools necessary to meet both the industry’s and the consumer’s expectations. For us at the Italian Exhibition Group, it is most appropriate that just 10 days earlier, we received through CIBJO formal recognition from the United Nation’s Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) for the important work that is being done in this regard.”

The VICENZAORO January show will take place in Vicenza from January 20 to January 25, 2017. It is organised by the Italian Exhibition Group Spa (IEG), the new trade show company created through the merger between Rimini Fiera and Fiera di Vicenza.