The Gold Marketing Chain in Suriname - WWF, Abu Dhabi unveil ...

(unprocessed and jewelry). In case gold is being imported from another Caricom member
country (such as Guyana), one needs a Caricom certificate. The importer has to pay 10 percent
sales tax (Omzetbelasting, OB) and 0.5 statistics duties (statistiek recht).
Suriname gold shops import jewelry from Italy, China, Hong Kong, Dubai, the US, Colombia, and
Brazil (Figure 7.1). Italy remains the undisputed leader of fashionable and high quality jewelry
design, and is the most popular country for import of jewelry. A reason to buy from Hong Kong
is that golden jewelry from that country is usually 24K, which some customers prefer. Like Hong
Kong, also other jewelry exporting countries tend to specialize in gold of a certain fineness
(Karat) (Table 7.1). Box 6 explains the relation between karat and fineness of gold.
Table 7.1 Origin of ready‐made and imported jewelry sold in Suriname jewelers shops (N=29)
Suriname
Italy
China
Hong Kong
US
Dubai
Colombia
Brazil
0 1 2 3 4 5
Number of jewelers (Ntotal=29)
A few large jewelers are responsible for most imports; including Johnny Chee, Dennis Lee, Chou
Wing Wah, and Man Wah. Smaller jewelers may buy ready‐made jewelry from the large Suriname
gold entrepreneurs such as Johnny Chee. One jeweler imports gold for soldering from the
Netherlands. By importing this gold he saves time because it is a lot of work to fabricate the
alloy for soldering (with cadmium, silver, etc).
60