Starting this Friday, the sixth annual Singapore JewelFest will showcase up to $100 million worth of jewellery from 34 local and international jewellers at Ngee Ann City's Civic Plaza.

And, despite the doom and gloom in the global financial market, organiser JewelFest Pte Ltd – formed by five Singapore-based jewellers, including TianPo Jewellery and Lee Hwa Jewellery – said it doesn’t expect to see a slowdown in sales. In fact, it hopes to see an increase of 10 per cent in both attendance and sales.

After all, "sales figures this year have been better than last year's", said a spokesman for Soo Kee Jewellery, one of the organisers of JewelFest.

Other jewellers my paper spoke to were more cautious.

Director of Poh Heng Jewellery Chng Hwee Siang said "it is too early to tell" if Singapore's jewellery market will feel the negative impact from the financial crisis just yet.

Still, the figures are encouraging.

Last year's JewelFest in October saw sold $12 million worth of jewellery sold, and attracted 18,000 visitors. It showcased jewellery totalling $75 million in value.

JewelFest is one of two main jewellery events here, the other being trade and consumer show Singapore International Jewellery Show, which was held in August. That show rang up $42 million in sales, though it also made sales to overseas trade buyers.

Mr Jean Nasr, head of Mouawad, Asia, also told my paper that Singapore is poised to be a jewellery hub in the region because of the "many millionaires surfacing in Asia". There were 77,000 millionaires in Singapore alone this year.

Tourist spending in terms of sales totalled $312 million last year, according to Mr Andrew Phua, director of cluster development, tourism shopping and dining of Singapore Tourism Board. That made up 10 per cent of total tourist spending.

According to Mr Kean Ng, chairman of Singapore Jewel Fest and assistant business director of Aspial/Lee Hwa, the jewellery industry here employs 4,700 workers in about 700 establishments and generated sales of $1.5 billion in 2006.

It also registered a 30 percent sales growth for the Great Singapore Sale this year, ringing up the tills to the tune of $22.4 million.

» Highlights at Singapore Jewelfest 2008

Singapore JewelFest is on from Oct 24 to Nov 2, from 12pm to 9pm, at Ngee Ann City, Civic Plaza. Admission is free.

This article was first published in my paper on Oct 22, 2008.