ComVal continues to upgrade its jewelry products

NABUNTURAN, COMPOSTELA VALLEY PROVINCE - The province of Compostela Valley continuously improves the craftsmanship and quality of its jewelry pieces in a bid to widen its market.

The province, which is the biggest producer of gold and silver in the region, is into jewelry production already to give additional value to the minerals that it produces. This value-adding initiative started in 2002 but actual adoption and implementation was only done in 2007. This was also the time when gold and silver jewelry was adopted as the provincial One Town One Product (OTOP).

The United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) cites Diwalwal, ComVal’s rich field, as containing gold from 25 up to 100 grams per ton, approximately 50 times more than the famous gold ore from the Witwatersrand Basin in the Republic of South Africa.

ComVal’s major gold deposits are Mabini with 17 million metric tons, New Bataan with 15.6 million MT, Maco with 2.3 million MT, Monkayo with 670,000 MT, Pantukan with 500,000 MT, Nabunturan with 198,000 MT, and Compostela with 62,000 MT.

Patrick Kim B. Evangelio, information/investment promotion officer of the Department of Trade and Industry-Compostela Valley Program Office (DTI-CV), said a jewelry-making training center was also established in 2007 in the municipality of Monkayo to address the need to produce highly-skilled artisans.

Since its establishment, the center has already produced 100 jewelry makers who graduated from the basic and upgrading courses in jewelry-making.

“Jewelry-making is actually a complementary livelihood in support to the mining industry as we train the wives of the miners and those who are not into mining to come up with jewelry pieces that we can offer to tourists and other buyers,” he said.

Evangelio said the direction right now of the industry is to entice businessmen who can help market the products.   

Evangelio added that it is easy to sell ComVal jewelry pieces as these boast of high quality. In fact, its silver jewelry line contains 99.5 percent of silver, higher than the silver content of the ones sold commercially which are only composed of 92.5 percent of silver.

DTI-CV is optimistic that the industry’s full potential will be unleashed especially that the provincial government and other stakeholders are very supportive of the various development initiatives. (DTI11/JenMendoza)