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First gold hallmarking firm set to take off

Kawsar Khan
A local company is set to start tests in a month to determine the purity of gold and gold ornaments through a chemical analysis of substances.
According to the company, Bangla Gold, the move will pave the way for jewellers to export ornaments and ensure the purity of gold and gold ornaments. Ornaments or gold bars will also be inscribed with the company's trademark through laser-ray writing.
"If purity of a piece of gold is 87.5 percent or 21-carat, we will inscribe it along with our company's hallmark on the ornament. This will reassure the customers of the purity of the product," Enamul Haque Khan, managing director of Bangla Gold, the first of its kind.
The company, located at Tatibazar in Old Dhaka, has brought in the required machinery for testing the precious metal.
Jewellers must obtain memberships from the company to take the opportunity of hallmarking ornaments, the company officials said.
"We have got approval from the government for the work and we have set up equipment. Now what we are doing is preparing ourselves," Khan said.
The company has already tested the purity of a sample of gold. " We have got almost the same test result for the sample as the Italian- and Dubaibased companies have done," hesaid.
"Some methods to assess the purity of gold are in use; but these methods cannot bring accurate results," Khan said.
Big companies outsource the ornament-making job to artisans, who take gold from jewellery shops and make
ornaments in line with requirements by the companies.
Under the new system, the artisans of the client jewellery shops will send the ornaments to Bangla Gold to undergo a test.
"If ornaments don't contain a required amount of gold, we will not hallmark them. Without hallmarking jewellery shops would not receive the ornaments," said Haque, also the owner of Meghna Jewellers.
Gold ornaments require a blend of other metals with pure gold to make it harder. Some businessmen take this as an opportunity of using cheaper metals instead of gold. "But the hallmarking system will change the trend," a businessman said.
The company officials said it would cost Tk 250 to Tk 300 initially to test a piece of gold ornament, but the cost of testing will come down soon.
Despite huge demand for gold ornaments on the international market, the country fails to tap the opportunity due to absence of hallmark-
ing, the company officials said. In India, there are over 102 labs for analysing gold while Bangladesh had none.
In India, the hallmarking companies work under the supervision of Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), while the counterpart organisation in Bangladesh, Standards and Testing Institution (BSTI), has no department or institution or laboratory for the purpose.
Khan said the initiative would impose some sort of discipline in the country's jewellery sector.
The hallmarking company has a total of 10 directors with Kazi Sirajul Islam, the owner of Amin Jewellers, and Ganga Charan Malakar, owner of Venus Jewellers, as its chairman and vice-chairman.
Testing of a precious metal to determine its purity is a global practice to protect consumers. In the US, all precious metals and ornaments are sold after having analysed by the US government to determine their purity.