Association to offer free membership to small traders before gold exchange launches
In the vein of a gold exchange being planned in India by India Bullion and Jewellers Association in association with the Bombay Stock Exchange, the association is making efforts to add in more jewellers to its membership. % For this it is offering free membership to jewellers in cities and small towns, doing away with its of around USD 1,494 membership fee, reports add. The IBJA currently has around 3,000 members and intends this to reach to 10,000 by the launch of the exchange planned. With the increase in membership, the government schemes would gain in popularity and members would benefit from the physical gold exchange, as per IBJA, reports say.
The exchange would enable standardizing prices and improving transparency. In India, the jewellery industry also consists of a large portion of small scale traders and jewelers who are not part of a formal group, as such not being able to benefit from schemes on one hand and the government not being able to implement regulatory changes to maintain market transparency, reports say. IBJA consists of gold dealers, traders and jewellers.