Word: pearls
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...pearl market changed in the early 1890s, however, when Japan's Kokichi Mikimoto first successfully cultured pearls, artificially mimicking the natural process and allowing pearls for the first time to be matched for necklaces. A century later, Chinese farmers have further perfected this technique, yielding more than 1,500 tons of freshwater pearls last year, or 95% of the world's pearl production. "Today, the quality of Chinese cultured pearls matches some of the best natural pearls ever found," says Hong Kong gemologist Henry Cheng...
...result of China's output, pearl prices have dropped dramatically over the past five years - by as much as 60% by some estimates - and pearls are suddenly as trendy as when Jackie Kennedy popularized them in the early 1960s. Not that these are your mother's pearls. The jewels now come in all shapes and sizes. Colors are equally diverse, ranging from the bright white of the Akoya variety to freshwater pastels to Tahitian black pearls. Unlike diamonds, pearls have no common grading system, and value is judged on seven factors: size, color, shape, luster, surface quality, nacre...
...There's no dispute, however, over the fact that Hong Kong is the place to buy them. Since the late 1980s, the city has slowly usurped Kobe, Japan, as Asia's leading pearl trading post, helped in part by a red-tide disease that destroyed most of Japan's major pearl farms in the 1990s. Hong Kong also enjoys its proximity to China's pearl farms, and the absence of import taxes. Annual trade shows now not only bring buyers from around the globe for China's freshwater jewels, but also auctions for the products of the world's largest...
...Still, being China's middleman can be both a blessing and a curse. The current low prices for pearls may also be a product of cheap labor. Japan's pearl farmers are organized into an umbrella association that sets prices and offers welfare to those who fall on hard times. By contrast, the Chinese producers are more vulnerable to exploitation: "Chinese farmers might as well be selling fruit or cattle," Cheng says. "Their only hope is to cover expenses. They have no idea how valuable their product can be and don't ask for higher prices...
...Hong Kong also operates under the constant fear that it could one day be bypassed by China in its dealings with the global pearl market. Man Sang, for one, is hedging its bets. The jewelry company has invested more than $200 million in the 1.2 million square miles China Pearls and Jewellery City in Zhuji, a Yangtze River town that provides 80% of China's freshwater pearl trade volume. When it is completed this fall, the enormous marketplace is expected to house more than 5,000 pearl shops, and Man Sang aims for it to become "the world's pearl...