Buy gemstones from specialised stores: Ministry urges consumers
Times News Service
MUSCAT: Consumers in Oman have been urged by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry (MoCI) to only purchase natural gemstones from specialised stores, rather than from vendors, following incidents in which buyers were defrauded.
Natural gemstone buyers are subjected to various types of fraud by many traders. Keeping in view their high prices, the availability of cheap and imitation stones, as well as fraud, the directorate general of standards and metrology of the MoCI has taken steps to protect consumers of jewellery.
Carrying out provisions of Royal Decree No. 109/2000, the ministry examined 978 samples of precious stones during 2017. It had examined 377 samples in 2016.
“Article 7 of the Royal Decree 109/2000 states, ‘It is not permissible to sell valuable stones unless they are accompanied by a card indicating the name of the stone, its class, weight, colour and quality, in terms of purity, properties, safety from breaking, scratching and any other defects, and the extent of exposure to any kind of treatments or processing ’,” said Nasser bin Ashraf Al Balushi, head of the precious stones department and testing laboratory in the Directorate General of Standards and Metrology.
The precious stone testing laboratory will determine the type of treatment for these stones, if any, and issue a certificate bearing the specifications of the precious stone.
The test will be for colour polished stones, diamonds and pearls. That jewellery which contains precious stones, as well as raw and rough stones, is also to be tested, he added.
He noted that this section of the directorate was trying to increase the level of awareness among traders and consumers, along with coordinating with government and private agencies.
Al Balushi said that natural stone remains a natural stone, regardless of its geographic origin. However, it is the geographic source which effects the price. The collectors of precious stones often attach great importance to its geographical origin or country of origin, which has the greatest impact on the price.
The dominant culture from where the precious stone is imported has its impact on their demand. For example, the jade stone was mentioned by Xu Chen in the first Chinese dictionary as a symbol of beauty. Jade has a long history in Chinese civilisation. A number of archaeologists found that some of the pieces made of jade dated back to about 5,000 BC.