PAPE’ETE (Oceania Flash) — French Polynesia’s latest international black pearl auction has netted some 708 million French Pacific francs, signaling a return to normalcy in the industry after a difficult 2001, daily newspaper La Depeche de Tahiti reports.
The international sale was organized at the week end by Tahiti Pearl Producers and Poe Rava Nui syndicates that had joined efforts on the occasion.
Producers noted that in average, the price has now returned to satisfactory levels, with 3,188 French Pacific francs per gram of black pearl
Last year, French Polynesia President Gaston Flosse had spearheaded drastic measures to fight what was then considered as the proliferation of “bad” products from producers who engaged in price dumping.
Flosse, who took over the pearl industry portfolio, introduced a set of measures that included systematic X-ray search for pearls at Tahiti-Faa’a international airport.
The minimum thickness for mother of pearl was set at 0.6 millimeters around the nucleus.
A new set of measures to be introduced soon would fix that minimum to 0.8 millimeters, RFO reports.
Among a total of some 40 buyers who had flocked from around the world, Japan had sent some 24 representatives to the auction in Pape’ete.
