STAFF REPORT IBD: The public-private partnership is a must for quality improvement and value addition of products related to gemstone and jewellery sector.
These were the remarks expressed at a 3-day training workshop on “Gemstone Identification and Evaluation”, jointly organized by Pakistan Museum of Natural History (PMNH) and PGJDC at PMNH.
Purpose of the workshop was to impart training to business persons about gemstones, their identification, characterstics, grading and gemstones value assessment. Over 40 persons from various chambers of commerce and industry are participating in the training workshop aimed at value addition and quality improvement of finished products. The workshop would highlight salient features of gemstone trade and certain pitfalls.
In his address, Pakistan Science Foundation (PSF) Chairman Prof. Dr. Manzoor H. Soomro said that there should be an MoU between PMNH, which is a subisdiary department of PSF, to have a public-private partnership and to improve value addition of gems and jewellery products to compete the international market.
He also spoke on PSFs different SandT promotion and popularization programmes, especially, RandD Industry and Innovation Programmes. He said PSF provides funds for different RandD projects and for their approval the concept of products value addditions is given priority.
In her remarks on the occasion, Senator Semeen Yusuf Siddiqui welcomed a proposal of signing an MoU for public-private partnership to promote research for improving quality of gems and jewellery products.