Badrul Ahsan :
The fear of mugging and high prices have pushed use of silver jewellery many folds across the country instead of gold, insiders said.
They said, many rich, middle income and lower middle-income groups of people are showing increasing trend of shifting their choices to silver jewellery after sky-high price of gold and other precious metals.
Following the increasing demand of the low cost metal, show rooms of such jewelries also increased significantly during the period.
Industry insiders said that use of silver had increased to more than 300 tonnes in a year across the country, compared with 70 tonnes a decade ago or so.
According to the latest price adjustment, the price of one bhori of 21-carat silver has now stood at around Tk 1,450 while the price of a bhori of 22-carat gold is Tk 43,406, of 21-carat Tk 40,248, of 18-carat Tk 36,658, and of the traditional gold Tk 27,410 in the local market, Bangladesh Jewellers Samity (BJS) data showed.
“The use of silver increased manifold in the last couple of years because gold ornaments are beyond the means of common people,” former president of Bangladesh Jewellery Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BJMEA), Anwar Hossain told the New Nation Sunday.
“They (common people) are becoming more dependent on gold-plated silver ornaments. The clients order these kinds of ornaments as per their demand or they also buy readymade gold-plated one,” he added.
“The people are not buying silver plated ornaments not only because of their affordable prices, but also to dodge the mugger,” Hossain said.
Besides, changing trend of designs and combinations of stones in the beauty products are also helping switching to low cost metal, they informed.
“Women are now in undeclared competition of wearing ornaments matching with their clothes it is also another reason behind the high demand for the item. Women can easily afford three-four sets or multi sets of gold-plated ornaments with colourful stones matching with their saree or dresses if it is a low cost one,” Ferdousara Zaman, proprietor of Fashion Jewellery of the city’s Mouchak Market area told the New Nation on Sunday.
“Copied jewellery ornaments look beautiful and safer to wear than gold ornaments. There is nothing to be worried if the ornaments are mugged,” she added.
“For this reason, the use of silver has now reached around 250 tonnes to 300 tonnes per year, which was less than 100 tonnes seven to eight years ago,” she said.
However, the BJMEA president, who also owns General Jewellers, said, “There were nearly 200 gold jewellery shops in the city a decade it is now about 1000.
Following the shift in trend of using jewellery items from gold to silver, many of our fellow businessmen are now switching their business to the low cost one, Hossain informed.
Meanwhile, when asked regarding the quality of silver, BJS general secretary Dewan Aminul Islam said: “The amount of silver should be 80 per cent in an ornament as per the rules. But question remains about the quality of silver.”
BJS general secretary said: “We have got allegation of having 20 per cent to 30 per cent silver in ornaments, which is not acceptable. So, we are going to take action against this.”
He requested the customers to take the cash memo while buying any gold-plated silver or pure silver ornaments and asked the jewellers to write clearly about having 80 per cent of silver in the ornament and then complain to the association.
