African countries find market for Gemstones

Mzuzu, Dec8, Mana: Malawi, Zambia, Tanzania and Mozambique have for the first time found a market to sell their gemstones together .

According to Isaac Gondwe, Project Manager of gemstone marketing , markets have been found in European Union, Asia as well as United States of America.

"Because the idea came from Malawi, all countries are now looking to us. There is high probability that all gemstones from all the four countries will come to Malawi because of its geographical position. In Malawi, they will be auctioned just like tobacco and buyers will come from United States of America, Europe Asia and other continents." said Gondwe with excitement.

He said all this took was discussed and agreed at a Communities and Small Scale Mining conference (CASM ) which took place in Mongolia in September this year.

He said Zambia and Tanzania have already much gemstones saying the programme has delayed because Malawi wants to start producing enough and high quality gemstones to competite with other countries.

Gondwe believes that value addition to gemstone can best be done when the capacity of small scale miners to produce high quality raw gemstones is enhanced .

He said with funding from a local donor Malawi expects to produce 60 metric tonnes of quartz as well as 20,000 grammes of semi precious stones from February 2008.

He said so far they have managed to open up 25 mines in Mzimba which will be employing more than 20 people per mine saying more mines will be opened in the future countrywide.

The mines will significantly reduce unemployment especially to school leavers who have nothing to do in the villages.

"What is interesting is the fact that Malawi produces the best ornamental stones in the SADC region. This means our quartz will be more marketable thereby generating more forex for the country," he said.

He said his organisation has entered an agreement with the miners to ensure that they are properly trained to produce high quality gemstones.

Gondwe said it is expected that environmental degradation will be checked because it will now be one organisation running all mines other than a fragment of mines working independently.

Gondwe said in addition to the training of the miners, there is also a component of HIV/AIDS education to ensure that people refrain from immorality.

"We have lost many people to the pandemic to the effect that most miners that started with

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