Letters | Coronavirus in Hong Kong: hard-hit jewellers need government and peer support to shine again

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A customer looks at jewellery at a shop in Tsim Sha Tsui in July 2018. Hong Kong’s jewellery manufacturers contributed 16.7 per cent to the city’s domestic exports in 2018. Photo: Winson Wong

Published: 7:35am, 1 Jun 2020Updated: 11:00am, 1 Jun 2020

As the coronavirus pandemic takes a heavy toll on Hong Kong’s economy, the export-oriented jewellery sector has been particularly hard hit. Exports in the sector fell by 37.3 per cent in April, compared to a 3.7 per cent total decline for Hong Kong.

Most of Hong Kong’s jewellery manufacturers have factories on the mainland and their operations have been suspended since mid-January, causing heavy losses. Meanwhile, the major export markets of our jewellery manufacturers are Europe and the United States, which have been heavily hit by the coronavirus crisis.

While the Hong Kong government has announced an Anti-epidemic Fund and a low-interest loan facility under the SME Financing Guarantee Scheme, many businesses, including those in the jewellery sector, will not benefit from these schemes because their office space and salaried staff in Hong Kong represent only a small part of the working capital requirement compared to their inventory and factory operations on the mainland.

Meanwhile, the coronavirus pandemic has also disrupted the schedule of major industry events. Recently, the organisers of the Jewellery and Gem Asia Hong Kong exhibition unilaterally decided to postpone their event from June to November, moving the venue from the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre to AsiaWorld-Expo.

This decision affects around 800 exhibitors, including 300 members of the Hong Kong Jewelry Manufacturers’ Association, and involves HK$40 million (US$5 million) in participation fees, according to our estimates.

The fair clashes with our own trade fair, which is held in November every year, putting exhibitors in the unenviable position of choosing between the two. Exhibitors have not been offered a refund so far.