Feature: Amber fair ends in Gdansk, prices growing
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E-mail Xinhua, March 23, 2014
A major international amber fair ended Saturday in the Polish seaside town of Gdansk with rising price of the translucent fossil resin, which has become more popular in recent years.
More than 450 exhibitors from 17 countries and regions attended AMBERIF 2014, the 21st International Fair of Amber, Jewelry and Gemstones, presenting their products at the world's biggest amber fair.
Buyers and visitors, most of whom are jewelry store and gallery owners and wholesalers from more than 50 countries and regions, all came to Gdansk to look for unique amber jewelry. Apart from Baltic amber, the fairs offer included silver, gold and gemstones.
The AMBERIF fairs are held in the Polish seaside region of Pomerania, in the city of Gdansk. This area, with more than 700 jewelry producers, is a place traditionally connected to amber. Every year, Gdansk is a host to two big jewelry fairs, the other one, AMBERMART held in autumn.
The AMBERIF fairs are accompanied by many events, including a series of seminars and conferences and competition. This year's contest for the Amber Business Partner Award and the honorary title was won by Vivian Yang, owner of SAGE Amber Ltd. of China.
The Baltic amber has been highly valued since the Roman Empire, when the Amber Road connected the Baltic Sea with regions as far as the Black Sea, Syria and Egypt.
The Baltic amber dates back to 44 million years ago and its deposit, estimated at around 105 tons, is the biggest in the world.
Amber is a fossilized tree resin, defined by five classes, according to their chemical constituents.
Due to high amount of succinic acid, the Baltic amber has unique color and transparency. Apart from aesthetic function, it is well known for its healing power. The biggest amber producers are Poland and Russia.
The interest in the Baltic amber in China is recently growing at a fast pace. Chinese buyers appreciate amber for its beauty. Some of them tend to buy amber as a form on investment.
According to Krzysztof Lalik, a co-owner of Golden Amber company, the prices are about to increase even more, as the demand for the material is constantly growing.
"The rocketing prices of gold and silver (...) will have a big impact on the activity of amber companies. ... Taking into account the low supply and high demand, especially on the Chinese market, further growth is highly likely," he said.
There are other factors causing the increase of amber prices. One of them is the fact that Polish and Lithuanian manufacturers have no access to Russian material.
In the autumn of 2013, Kaliningrad amber plants in Yantarny area on the Sambian Peninsula withheld the export of amber. Therefore, Polish manufacturers were cut off the supply.
While the amount of material on the market is declining, the need for amber among the Chinese and Arab buyers is getting bigger, as the more expensive the amber, the more lucrative investment it is for them.
According to local media, the whole value of the amber export in Poland is about 300 million U.S. dollars a year. The price of 1 kg of amber suitable to jewelry use is about 6,000 zloty (about 1,972 dollars).
Nowadays, due to a growing need for amber, the Polish government is considering a possibility of exploring and extracting the underground amber located mostly in Pomerania region.
As far as the amber boom is concerned, "it is hard to estimate precisely how long it will last," said Yang. Endi
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