An Italian retail jeweler says Thailand has a good chance of eclipsing Italy as the world’s number one jeweler producer—in quantity, but not in quality.

            Pietro Blondi, a major Italian retail jeweler, started shopping for finished jewelry from Thailand last year.

            “As an experiment, I bought some medium priced jewelry of invisibly set sapphires from some Thai companies exhibiting at the Basel fair,” he says. The pieces sold well and, as a result, Mr. Blondi visited the Bangkok trade fairs in March and placed orders for US$150,000 worth of Thai-made jewelry.

            It marks a significant change for Mr. Blondi, who formerly restricted his Thai purchases to lose stones. “It was quite good for my company to come here and buy high-quality loose stones, then take them back to Italy and transform them into Italian style,” he explains.

            Last year, however, Mr. Blondi says he started noticing the increasing quality of Thai finished jewelry. “The quality for low-to-medium range jewelry here is quite good. For high-end jewelry, however, the quality is not yet at a high level, although it is improving.”

            Mr. Blondi is president of Blondi Gioielli SPA, a company which goes back five generations in his family. He operates two shops, in Carpi and Modena, one for low-to-medium priced jewelry and another for high end pieces, both catering to the local market.

            “When I first started coming to Thailand 11 years ago to buy stones, I used to see a lot of Italian produced jewelry in the Bangkok shops,” he comments. “Now, I find very little imported jewelry in Thailand. In fact, I’m seeing Thai jewelry in Italian shops. This is a big change, and a dangerous change, for us.”

            Italy, now the number one producer of finished jewelry in the world, is in danger of being eclipsed by Thailand, the number two producer, Mr. Blondi says. “In quantity, it’s possible [for Thailand to surpass Italy]. But in quality and in value, I think Italy will remain number one.”

            Italian jewelry production began developing in earnest more than a century ago. “We don’t have gold, we don’t have stones—no raw material, just labor and maybe fantasy,” Mr. Blondi says.

            Exceptional design and craftsmanship propelled Italy to the number one spot, along with a strong internal market. “When producers are supported by a good local market, it is easier for them to gain a foothold in foreign markets.”

            Although Italy is the number one producer of finished jewelry, it has no large factories except for the production of gold chains. “We have a very different situation from Thailand,” Mr. Bolndi says. “We have a lot of small companies of two, three, four people—very small. Each company specializes in something: one designs, on sets, one finishes. In Thailand, you find factories of 200,300 and 400 people.”

            Thailand’s cheap labor force is its main advantage over Italy, Mr. Blondi says. He advises Thai jewelry manufacturers who want to sell to the Italian market “to study our designs and our methods.”

            Hong Kong jewelry makers have already adopted this strategy, he adds. “At the Basel fair, I notice more Hong Kong companies than Thai ones producing jewelry for Italian tastes.”

            While clean, classic style remains the standard, Italian taste in jewelry changes slightly from year to year, he comments. “Not as quickly as it does for clothes, but it does change. For instance, until now our market was not good for semi-precious stones. Recently, however, a market has grown in Italy for semi-precious stones. Recently, however, a market has grown in Italy for amethyst, citrine and aquamarine, set in bigger pieces than previously.”