India Bullion & Jewellers Association’s (IBJA) annual event i.e. India International Bullion Summit (IIBS-7) was held in Mumbai on 11th & 12th March, 2022. More than 800 Bullion dealers & Jewellers attended this event.

Chief Guest for the Event was Mr. Manoj Kumar, Executive Director – IFSCA. During his inaugural speech, he informed the members the importance of International Bullion Exchange and how it will be beneficial to qualified jewellers.Ruth Crowell, CEO of LBMA also joined conference through virtual mode along with Mr. Juan Carlos Artigas Global Head of Research of World Gold Council & Mr. John Mulligan, Director Market Relations and Climate Change Lead of World Gold Council.

Key note speaker for the event was VS Sundaresan, Executive director - SEBI. Mr. sundaresan explained to the members as to how domestic bullion spot exchange will transform the bullion industry and how it would help an investor to buy electronic gold receipt and keep the same in Demat form. Interactive Session on Silver & Gems Stones was organised for the first time in the country, which saw huge interest. Delegates from World Gold Council Global Office gave Virtual Presentation. Ruth Crowell from LBMA also raised issues regarding good delivery bars.

The panel discussion included topics like Domestic Gold Spot Exchange, International Bullion Exchange, Mandatory Hallmarking and Gold Price Outlook. Presentations were also made for ESG Gold and Options & Future Master Class.

The event was also followed by 25 industry related Awards for the best in best of the industry. Lot of enthusiasm was seen in modus Operandi of proposed Gold Exchange & Govt. plans to make mandatory hallmarking. Some of the Jewellers expressed their concern on how gold will be made asset class as they foresee that PMLA shall be implemented soon.

IBJA plans to start awareness campaign for International & domestic Bullion Exchange in the entire country by educating the jewellers through various small seminar & round table conference informed Surendra Mehta, National Secretary of India Bullion & Jewellers Association (IBJA).

IBJA launched its ambitious plan to launch 3500 “IBJA Stores” across the country in next 10-15 years. IBJA has also launched jewellers connect program wherein IBJA will provide platform to small jewellers to display their jewellery in other states to enable small jewellers to compete with organised players.

During the Bullion Summit IBJA also signed a MOU to set up Domestic Gold Exchange with National Stock Exchange as per SEBI guidelines. This joint initiative by NSE & IBJA will not only offer the much awaited platform to the industry players for the spot market bullion transactions but also act as a step in the direction of giving an opportunity to investors and consumers to directly participate on the exchange platform.

The bullion summit ended with few interesting point comparing gold with other Asset class.