High Price of Gold Has More Consumers Considering Diamonds…
Indian jewelry manufacturers are experiencing double-digit increases in their diamond jewelry sales, while gold sales remain flat. The ever-increasing price of gold is leading a group of consumers to open their wallets a little more and spring for diamonds, in the way that a family sedan purchaser loading up on options may simply bump up to a luxury model. One sales and marketing executive said that they were going after diamond sales at both ends of the market. “We will be doing a high-value diamond campaign [and] offering designs at lower price points [to] … woo younger people with lower caratage jewellery.” The Times of India Jun. 24, 2010
Tags: Diamonds, Gitanjali Group, Orra, Tanishq
Over the past eight years, the price of gold has increased by 235 percent, from $271 to more than $1,000 an ounce. But the costs in human misery and environmental degradation may be even higher. National Geographic’s January cover story offers mostly sobering reading about mining for gold in far-flung spots around the world — whether the miners are employing age-old techniques to extract gold remnants from an old, artisinal mine (as in the Peruvian Andes) or working at a large, modern mine (as in Indonesia). Here is one interesting tid-bit: all of the gold that has been mined to date, worldwide, can be fit within the space of two Olympic-sized swimming pools. 
