Starter Kit. Idea 236 of 500. Cluster 12
A gem laboratory in Colombo to the standard of the Swiss ones, with a foreign partner if it must, so the origin report is issued where the stone was mined
The mechanism, from the book
The sapphire is mined here and cut here, and its value is certified in Basel and turned into money in Geneva. Every step of that chain can be built at home, and the first one is the piece of paper.
The first step
Ask 10 gem dealers in Colombo and Ratnapura how many stones they send abroad each year for an origin report, what each report costs them, and how long they wait. Write the totals down. Then ask 3 of them whether they would pay the same fee to a Colombo laboratory with a foreign partner. The proof is a total volume, a total fee and 3 conditional yeses.
- Who pays first
- A Colombo gem dealer who pays for foreign certificates and shipping on important stones and waits weeks for a paper that could be issued at home.
- What leaves today
- The sapphire is mined and cut here, but its value is certified in Basel and realised in Geneva, so the certificate's fee and authority leave with it.
Ask first
- National Gem and Jewellery Authority. Ask which licence a testing laboratory needs and what equipment standard it expects.
- Board of Investment of Sri Lanka. Ask how a foreign laboratory partner would set up a joint venture here.
Check before you spend
Whether a laboratory issuing origin reports needs its own licence, and whether a foreign partner will put its name on reports issued here.
Find out these three numbers
- What does a buyer abroad pay today for an origin report?
- How many stones a month would one cutting house send you?
- Which instruments does a recognised laboratory need first?
A comparison from the book
Switzerland. Chapter Sixteen
"Its value was certified in Switzerland and turned into money in Switzerland."
The report is issued where the trust lives, so the price is set there too.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
From the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? by Dr Maheshika Halbeisen. The idea and the mechanism are the book's; this kit was written for the site.