Gem & Jewellery India International Exhibition (GJIIE) jointly organised by Madras Jewellers and Diamond Merchant’s Association and UBM India celebrated its 9th edition from March 16-18, 2013 at the Chennai Trade Centre, Chennai. This B2B fair brought together manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers under one roof and also proved to be a perfect centre of glitterati jewellery and loose stones.%% Chief Guest, Rajendran, was escorted into the exhibition to light the ceremonial kuthuvillaku on the opening day of the exhibition with an orchestra of traditional South Indian instruments. To add glamour quotient, GJIIE organised an evening of jewellery fashion show titled ‘Style Statement’, to creatively display designs with a touch of smartness. It served as a platform for the country’s top manufacturers to showcase their trendsetting jewellery collection for the year 2013 in India.%% The fair included several interesting seminars to educate the audience on various aspects of the jewellery industry. A panel of experts, comprising Emmanuel Babu of Original Kerala Jewellers, Mohamed Yasir Sultan of Sultan Group, Suraj Shantakumar of Kirtilals and Sanjay Banerjee of Nizam Jewellers, engaged in a discussion on ‘Independent Retailing vs. Chain store Retailing’. This discussion explained the importance of brand identity in the market, which is essential for small-scale jewelers as well as large-scale jewelers.%% The gold walk featuring models with signature pieces from participating jewelers also received an overwhelming response from the exhibitors as well as the visitors. During the inaugural speech, Kranti Nagvekar, Group Director for UBM India’s jewellery portfolio, announced the launch of the first B2C show, ‘I Love Jewellery’, which will commence in October, meant exclusively for the jewellers of Chennai and other important surrounding cities. For the first time ever, UBM India is organising a B2C Jewellery show in October 2013 and since it is going to be held a week before Diwali with a focus on high end products like jewellery, watches and others, it is expected that the turn over and turnout will be excellent with more than 20 – 30 thousands visitors.%% Jayantilal J Challani, President, MJDMA shared, “The idea behind B2C is to benefit the end users by making available all varieties and latest design under one roof at an affordable price. Chennai will become the hub of B2C jewellery exhibition as it is for B2B jewellery show.” The B2C exhibition will be attended by invitees and over 200 jewellers from Chennai are expected to participate. There will be two categories of displays with one hall committed exclusively for hi-end jewellery. The exhibition is set to raise the benchmark and increase business among the jewellers from Chennai and for the jewellery industry at large. As a prelude and to add glamour to the show, UBM will organise a fashion show showcasing jewellery from across India. These exclusive pieces will be on sale and will be open to visitors at the exhibition.%% Kranti Nagvekar opines, “It is indeed a great opportunity for the residents of Chennai to come, see and be a part of the Chennai B2C fair, organized by MJDMA & UBM India. The association between MJDMA & UBM India has been really fruitful and we would like to thank all the office bearers of MJDMA who have untiringly been with us and supported us everywhere.” She further added, “I would also like to take this opportunity to thank the associations across the state of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Kerala for coming with us and ensuring GJIIE’13 is the bench mark setter in the Indian gems & jewellery industry. This year UBM India has announced its latest venture, Kolkata Jewellery & Gem Fair which will be held from 11-13 January, 2014. KJGF along with the other four exhibitions in Chennai, Mumbai, Delhi & Hyderabad together attracts over 30,000 key buyers and over 800 exhibitors from India and overseas.”%%