São Paulo – The plated jewellery manufacturing hub Limeira, in the state of São Paulo, has shipped its products to the Arab market. The municipality accounts for 70% of all Brazilian exports and 90% of São Paulo state plated jewellery exports, and has sold to Lebanon, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, according to the vice president of the local jewellery association, Associação Limeirense de Jóias, Rodolfo Dib Mereb Júnior. Arabs are also regulars at the local annual jewellery fair, Aljoias.
“We have records of products shipped to Lebanon, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar. However, those were sporadic sales, in an attempt to conquer a market with high purchasing power and a preference for gold and silver jewellery,” says the vice president. Mereb believes that tourists visiting the Arab world are potential buyers of Brazilian plated jewellery. “The Arabs are not familiar and fond of plated jewellery, so maybe the way in for our product is the tourist who turns the wheels of a major part of the economy of those countries,” he says.
The Limeira hub exports to approximately 20 countries and its main markets are in Latin America. The Aljoias fair receives customers from at least 20 different countries. Mereb says plated jewellery from Limeira enjoys wide acceptance because of its design and manufacturing quality. “Our natural stones add huge value to our products, and are accepted everywhere in the world. Our creative power, combined with our quality and alternative products, cause our plated jewellery to rise above the pack,” he says.
There are no figures available concerning plated jewellery output, but according to the ALJ, Limeira accounts for 50% of Brazilian production. The hub comprises roughly 500 companies and 300 stores. Most companies, 95%, are micro and small businesses. The items follow trends from the world’s leading fashion hubs, according to Mereb. Television is another influence, he says; collections targeting the domestic market are created based on what soap opera actresses wear.
The ALJ vice president says that even though plated jewellery manufacturing is not a recent activity in the municipality, the amount of companies in the region has increased. The story of the industry in the city dates back to 1938. In that year, João Martins Cardoso, his son Eduardo Urbano Cardoso, and Sylvio Cavasin set up a jewellery repair shop in the city, which eventually became a manufacturing plant.
The Cardoso business went into decline, but many of the company’s employees spawned several small plated jewellery manufacturing companies, driven by the preference Brazilian people have for products cheaper than those made of gold. Limeira was once an orange production hub, in the 1960s, and then turned to the metal industry, but currently a third of the economically active population – 45,000 to 50,000 people – works either directly or indirectly with plated jewellery.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
