Jewelers in the country have sold $100,000 million and have profits of $2,000 million

Even so, the jewelers registered with the Superintendence of es, declared having sales close to $100,000 million and profits of $2,000 million.

Throughout the year to April, gold exports fell 96.5%, 9 tons of the material were shipped out of the country, which represented US$282 million. Last year in the same period, external sales totaled US$500 million.

Work, gold trading processes and informality reach high levels: 64%. According to data from Fenalco, nine out of ten mining companies in charge of carrying out the raw material extraction process do not have operating titles, which constitutes one of the main problems regarding the lack of control, especially in intermediate cities.

“Despite the lack of formality, the production and treatment of gold in our country is generating close to 45,000 direct jobs. And if you look further, more than 350,000 people are being given work indirectly," said Juan Escobar, Fenalco's economic adviser.

Yet the sector seems to be experiencing a crisis. The business model is not yielding the expected results and what could be one of the most important economic sources in the country is being wasted.

Jewelers in the country have sold 0,000 million and have profits for https://website-google-hk.oss-cn-hongkong.aliyuncs.com/drawing/article_results_6/2022/2/27/9cdbf43caa27b6bafb8d2583b4d984fe.jpeg.000 million

“Gold is the sixth product that Colombia exports the most, but its full potential is not being used for various reasons. On the one hand, the raw material is not being found, smuggling takes a large part of the product and free trade agreements are not being used as they should,” Botero said.

One of the responses to the phenomenon has been in imports, which, in April 2015 grew 113% compared to the same period last year.

The good face of the business is provided by the processed gold that has helped to appease the crisis a bit. Between January and April they exported US$50 million while in the same period in 2014 it was US$34 million.

In this regard, Ricardo Kling, manager of Bauer Jewelry, was pessimistic. “The business model is not the right one. Smuggling, the drop in exports, the arrival of foreign players are making the business in Colombia suffer a lot, enough to make it disappear," he said.

Fenalco calculates that the representation of international participation in the domestic gold market could be between 10% and 20%, but the trend is growing.

Finally, those associated with the guild agree that the primary source of jewelry cannot be thought of as scrap gold, since there are implicit crimes that have to do with theft and smuggling.

Salaries in the jewelry sector Regularly 46.52% of the people who are involved in the jewelry sector earn between one and two minimum wages. Those who manage to earn more than two minimum wages are only 18.68%, a figure that mainly refers to the individuals who are at the end of the commercial chain, that is, those who are in charge of selling the already processed material. And finally, 34.8% earn less than a minimum wage, here are those who extract the raw material.

Opinions

Guillermo BoteroPresident of Fenalco"There is a very strong niche in international trade, the problem is that the jewelry sector is not finding the raw materials to take advantage of it."

Ricardo KlingPresident of Bauer jewelery"A handicraft work that is very well done in the country is going to be thrown away, because the facilities for production have not been provided due to the search for gold."