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Prima Opens India Market for Thai Gold

Posted on: Tuesday, 19 July 2005, 00:00 CDT

Jul. 19--Prima Gold International Co, the marketing arm of the Pranda Group, has started marketing its flagship Prima Gold ornaments in India to cash in on tariff privileges from bilateral free trade agreement (FTA) between Thailand and India.

Prida Tiasuwan, the Pranda Group's chairman, said that Prima Gold International recently signed a contract to appoint Chetan Dave as the company's agent in India where he would be responsible for marketing and distributing Prima Gold products.

The move, he said, was in line with the market opening under FTA signed between Thailand and India, which took effect in September last year.

Customs tariffs on gold ornaments imported into India were halved to 12.5 percent under FTA from previously 25 percent. They would be reduced further to 6.5 percent in September this year and totally scrapped in 2007.

Mr Prida said the market opening in India was another major step in the Pranda Group's revised business strategies aimed at keeping pace with the international trade policy, especially with India, where gold ornaments are very popular and the buying power is rather high.

Rungnapa Ngao-ngarmratana, the managing director of Prima Gold International, said in addition to benefits from the FTA, the company decided to enter India because gold ornaments there still lacked modern designs, delicacy and were of poor quality.

"Our Prima Gold unique designs and varying styles will break a new ground for the gold ornament market in India and is expected to be well received by consumers there," said Miss Rungnapa.

She said the company once exported gold ornaments to India six years ago but the steep tariffs of nearly 30 percent on gold accessories, which were categorised as luxurious goods, forced it out of the market. As well, consumers then did not prefer too high quality and expensive gold accessories.

To test the new market, Prima Gold opened a booth at the five-day International Indian Jewellery Fair ending yesterday in Bombay. Miss Rungnapa said a lot of gold ornament and jewellery retailers and wholesalers visited the company's booth and expressed strong interest in importing the company's products because the designs and styles matched the varying need of Indian consumers.

"After the event, we see it is possible to market our gold products in India," she said.

The company will initially export to India no more than 100 kilogrammes of Prima Gold products worth about 60 million baht this year.

Miss Rungnapa said Mr Dave would act on the company's behalf to select the importers or distributors for Prima Gold International. After the selection, the company will export the products directly to them.

Prima Gold ornaments are produced by Pranda Jewelry Plc and distributed by Prima Gold International. Prima Gold was first launched in Thailand 12 years ago and was now exported to nine countries -- Indonesia, Pakistan, the Philippines, the United Arab Emirates, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Japan, Nepal and Malaysia.

Pranda Jewelry shares (PRANDA) closed yesterday on the Stock Exchange of Thailand at 6.05 baht, unchanged, in trade worth 24,000 baht.

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Copyright (c) 2005, Bangkok Post, Thailand

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Source: Bangkok Post

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