An inspection drive at stores selling precious stones has begun to ensure jewellers are sticking to the Omani law, a senior official from the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, said.

“The inspections is part of implementing Royal Decree No. (109/2000), and comes under the framework of regulating the precious stone market and penalising stores that violate the terms and conditions stipulated therein,” Fayeza Bint Hamad Al Mushrfeya, the Director of the Department of Standards and Control of Precious Metals, said. 

Specialists from the Directorate General for Standardisation and Metrology in the Ministry of Commerce have already started inspection of stores in Muscat.

“The law related to sale of precious stones in the Sultanate prohibits selling, exhibiting, or possessing them with the intent of sale unless they carry a note or a card displaying all the required information about the stones, including the name of the stone, its type and weight in Karats, color and the extent of chemical refinement, if applicable,” she added.

As for diamonds, the information must include the weight, color and quality, considering aspects such as purity indicating to what extent they are free from defects such as scratch and rupture, she said, adding, the information tag for pearls should specify whether they are natural or not.

Last year, National Centre for Statistics and Information (NCSI) revealed that in 2015, Oman imported 1,500 tonnes of jewellery, including natural and artificial pearls, precious stones, semiprecious stones, precious metals, normal-coated metals, traditional jewellery and coins.

“The value of such jewellery items stood at OMR324.90 million and the Sultanate’s imports of such items surged by 88.2 per cent, compared with 2014 (300 tonnes worth of OMR172.6 million),” NCSI’s data revealed.
Source: Timesofoman