Everything You Need To Know About Ketang Jewelry Town – Introduced by JewelryShells The Local Gemstone Manufacturer
Many jewelers know that China is one of the largest suppliers of semi-precious stone jewelry, but most people don’t know how China has made itself into the world’s largest gemstone manufacturer. If I tell you that China’s semi-precious stone jewelry industry mainly comes from a small town, would you be curious? Do you want to know that there is such a place in the world, there is a town, and almost all people in this town are engaged in the jewelry industry?
In this article you will know:
- Who am I, and why I could talk about Ketang Jewelry Town?
- How does Ketang Jewelry Town become world famous step by step?
- How about China’s Jewelry Market?
Who am I, and why i could talk about Ketang Jewelry Town? Introduction of JewelryShells - the gemstone manufacturer of Ketang Town
Jade Wong, the owner of JewelryShells jewelry company, is also a gemstone manufacturer with more than 20 years of gem manufacturing experience in Ketang Jewelry Town. Today I will share with you what I have seen in China’s jewelry market in the gem manufacturing industry from my town. Want to know more info about JewelryShells, please click here!
Jade Wong, the founder of JewelryShells company, was born in 1984 in a very small village named DongXiKou of Ketang town. At that time there was no factory at all, the main population of mainland China was farmers, who made a living on traditional and backward farming. My grandfather was one of them.
Now Ketang town is the main gemstone industry base in China. I have witnessed the whole process from nothing to the top. I have been living here for about 40 years, and my family has been running a gemstone factory for over 20 years. No one understands the development of Ketang Town better than I do.
From my experience, you can get to know the development of China’s jewelry industry. And from my story, you can also understand a small piece of the modern history of Chinese towns and villages.
How does Ketang Jewelry Town become world famous step by step?
Ketang Jewelry Town is a place that manufacturers all kinds of gemstone products. In this town, all kinds of gemstone manufactures are everywhere.
Ketang Jewelry Town belongs to Haifeng County of Shanwei City in Guangdong Province. Ketang town is a small town. Countless gemstone manufacturers are located here, which is the largest gemstone production base in China. In 2022, there are more than 2,100 gemstone factories which have registered with government departments. And countless gem factories that do not register. When you enter this town, you will hear the screeching sound of machines everywhere. Sounds from punching machines, polishing machines, and so on.
As a native, I think the best way to introduce it is from my own story, and what I have seen and felt over the years.
40 years ago, Ketang town was a poor town. From the below story, you will get to know how poor we were.
I was born in 1984. At that time, China was very poor, and there was no jewelry factory at all. The city where my hometown is located had never sold mild powder. My uncle in Hong Kong bought milk powder for me, but he only could deliver it to the Shenzhen custom.
To get the milk, my father took the bus to Shenzhen. He spent the whole day on a bus. Today we only need half past one hour to reach Shenzhen city by train. When my father walked out of the custom with milk powder, he was stopped by several policemen. At first, they thought my father was a smuggler of Hong Kong goods. After checking my father’s luggage, they took my father directly to the police station for interrogation. Because the police had never seen milk powder, they thought it was the drug. Until a young cop drank a glass of milk, my dad was released.
This story happened about 40 years ago. At that time, most villages and towns in China were like this. No education, no medical care. The children could not go to school. Parents did not have jobs and could only be farmers. Many people had problems with food.
30 years ago, there were few gemstone manufacturers in the town. How did jewelry factories appear at that time?
In the 1970s, because of poverty, many young people had to smuggle to Hong Kong for a living. My uncle also smuggled to Hong Kong with his friends when he was 16 years old. After more than ten years of savings, the uncles bought some handmade jewelry machines from Hong Kong to our hometown. These machines were bead punching and polishing equipments. In this way, the original family workshop factories started.
Before I was ten, there were very few gemstone manufacturers in Ketang Town. The salary at that time was very low, workers were paid about 30 US dollars a month.
When I was in middle school, the jewelry factories were growing rapidly. In about five years, there had been several hundreds of factories in the town. At that time, gemstone manufacturers did not get much profit. And the labor costs were very cheap. The salary of each worker went up to 60 US dollars per month.
Most jewelry products were round beads, they were almost 100% natural, not dyed, no treatment. Beads were almost 100% exported. In these years, round-shaped gemstone beads were the main product of jewelry. There was no automatic faceting equipment, only handcrafted faceting. The workers worked very hard, they often worked more than ten hours a day, and only could take one or two days off per month.
The opening of the jewelry markets has promoted the rapid development of the jewelry industry.
After 2000, Guangzhou Liwan Plaza as a jewelry market attracted foreign customers to China to buy gemstone beads and jewelry. The low price of the jewelry gemstone supplies attracted many customers.
During this period, Ketang gemstone manufacturers learned American glue-filling technology and color dyeing. This enables a leap forward in the manufacturing process. Same time, many jewelry stores appeared in China.
In 2005, Ketang Jewelry Town had over 1,200 factories. The same year, Ketang Jewelry Trade Market started. In the past ten years, the Ketang jewelry market has developed quite well. It has changed from one jewelry market to several large markets today.
Today, countless gemstone manufacturers in Ketang Jewelry Town. There are more than 2,000 gemstone factories in Ketang Jewelry Town with business licenses. And there are many more gemstone manufacturers which have no licenses, they are still family processing workshops.
Ketang Jewelry Town manufactures all kinds of precious and semi-precious stones. It provides all types of products: beads, jewelry, ornaments, etc. The craftsmanship of Ketang jewelry has reached the first-class level. Jewelers from all over the world come here to find a variety of high-quality and low-cost products.
There are many relative jewelry manufacturers in the surrounding areas of Ketang Jewelry Town, with many types of products and high quality, which are well received by experts at home and abroad. The most important part is that the customers can see the entire production process from raw materials to finished products at the factory.
How about China’s jewelry market?
In the past ten years, in mainland China, jewelry stores have been established quite a lot. The jewelry business is growing very fast. Especially, in the past few years, because of the epidemic, people could not go out, and many people even could not go out to work. They had much free time to shop on their mobile phones at home. In this way, E-commerce has developed very fast. Now China is the most massive jewelry consumer market in the world.
Due to the rapid development of the domestic economy, a large part of Ketang Jewelry has converted from export to domestic sales. Now many gemstone manufacturers in Ketang Town produce mid-to-high-end gemstone round beads for bracelets and carving gemstones for pendants and others. Jewelry retail in China is changed from offline to online. The current sales are mainly E-commerce live sales.
FAQ
- How could i get to Ketang Jewelry Town?
You can take plane to Guangzhou city, then take bus or train to Haifeng County, and take a bus or a taxi to Ketang Town.
2. What products Ketang Jewelry Market sells?
It sells everything about jewelry, such as beads and accessories of precious and semi-precious stone, pearls, jade, metals accesorries such as gold/silver/brass findings, and jewelry. You can go to factory directly and place custom order to the gemstone manufacturer.
How to identify if a gemstone is real?
You can click here and read this article, it will tell you how to tell if a gemstone is real and the treatment ways of gems.
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