|
Travel
Sites |
Dubai style shopping festival soon
New Delhi: The Centre is planning to organise shopping festivals on the similar lines of popular Singapore and Dubai shopping festivals, which will specially promote gems and jewellers. Inaugurating a seven-day annual Gold festival in the Capital recently, the Union Culture and Tourism Minister Ambika Soni, announced that these shopping festivals will showcase India's rich designs in precious stones. "I have been told by the Commerce and Industry minister Kamal Nath of our export potential in ready-made jewellery, cut and polished diamonds we should organise three or four shopping festivals in the country where jewellery will be one of the biggest attractions," said Soni.
Meanwhile,
the seven-day gold is drawing a number of customers including wholesellers
and retailers. Over 50,000 jewellery items from across the country are
on display at the festival, representing various facets of Indian culture
and design. Though most of the jewellery is of pure gold, diamond studded
and other jewellery with precious stones drew a large number of patrons.
The organisers of the festival stressed on the purity of gold, silver
and gems in the festival. "The purpose of this exhibition is to showcase
Indian designs from around the country...each and every thing is hallmarked...so
the theme is purity," said Sanjeev Batra, chairman of state-run Minerals
and Metals Trading Corporation Ltd. Batra said the underlying appetite
for the yellow metal in India is still strong owing to festivals and marriages,
despite a slump in international market. In early May, Indian gold prices
scaled a record 10,715 rupees per 10 grams. Tourist arrivals in India
have risen 10.5 percent in August from a year ago, boosting foreign exchange
earnings from the sector by 4.9 percent to 456.76 million dollars. Since
January, 27,85,328 foreign tourists have visited India in comparison to
24,54,352 visitors in the corresponding year till the same time. And,
with shopping festivals like the gold festival, the tourism ministry hopes
to take the number much higher.
-Oct
11, 2006
Tourist
offices
in India
Helpline
|
Window
on India |
|
News
Links |