A customer (R) inspects pearls at the Pwint Phyu Pearl and Jewellery shop at Bogyoke Aung San Market, Yangon, on October 12.

MYANMAR pearl sales are expected to jump 20 percent this year due to a stronger international profile, an official from the state-run Myanmar Pearl Enterprise said.

MPE general manager U Sein Lwin said the biggest increases in sales were coming from Japanese and European merchants, who do most of their shopping at gem and jade emporiums in Yangon.

These auctions are an important source of foreign currency for the government, he added.

“We anticipate foreign exchange earnings from pearl exports will increase 20 percent this year,” U Sein Lwin said, declining to give a figure for likely earnings this year or 2006-07.

U Sein Lwin said the MPE would put 30,000 pearls up for auction at next month’s gem and jade emporium in Yangon being organised by the Myanma Gems Enterprise. About 80pc of the pearls would be “high quality”, he said.

“We expect about 70pc will be sold,” he added, noting that 100 foreign pearl companies had been invited to the sale.

U Sein Lwin said Myanmar’s South Sea pearls have been growing in popularity since 2000 and last year there were a number of foreign merchants attending sales in Myanmar for the first time who bought many pearls.

“Although we put more than 100,000 pearls up for auction (in 2006-07), only a few hundred were left unsold. That tells us that our pearls are attractive to international pearl traders,” U Sein Lwin said.

The MPE re-offers unsold pearls at different sales throughout the year.
Myanmar pearl production has been rising to meet demand, jumping from 117,852 pieces in the 2002-03 financial year to more than 400,000 pieces in 2006-07, according to figures from the MPE.

There are six pearling companies including the MPE operating in Myanmar, which has some 25,600 square kilometres of pearl-producing waters.