Golden shine on economic zone

Despite its high price, gold continues to give Kerala reasons to cheer up. The latest export earnings of gold jewellery from the Cochin Special Economic Zone (CSEZ) have touched Rs 28,473 crore.

The magnitude of gold’s worth sinks in only when one learns that it constituted the major chunk of the total export earnings of the CSEZ in 2011-12, which was Rs 29,975 crore.

In the previous year, gold exports at the CSEZ stood at about Rs 16,951 crore out of total export earnings of Rs 17,982 crore.

CSEZ sources said that high earnings from gold was partly due to the rise in the prices of gold and decline in the value of the rupee.

But the quantity exported too has gone up with a couple of jewellery manufacturing units joining the CSEZ last year.

While there are 16 gold and jewellery manufacturers in the CSEZ now, around 10 more units are waiting to join the zone this year. Gold exports from the state were exclusively to the Gulf and European countries.

“While exports to Gulf countries are mostly jewellery, Europeans prefer coins. Competitive pricing also was a reason for the boost in the demand for Kerala gold abroad,” said Mr P.V. Jose, state president of Jewellery Manufacturers Association.

Sector-wise export data of the CSEZ for 2011-12 also showed that after gold, electronics and hardware exports earned Rs 468 crore worth foreign exchange, IT&ITES Rs 314 crore, food and agricultural produce Rs 161 crore and textiles and garments Rs 113 crore, engineering items Rs 76 crore and rubber and plastic Rs 58 crore.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/179535" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: &lt;a&gt; &lt;em&gt; &lt;strong&gt; &lt;cite&gt; &lt;code&gt; &lt;ul&gt; &lt;ol&gt; &lt;li&gt; &lt;dl&gt; &lt;dt&gt; &lt;dd&gt;</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-c42e1dd9656750b4e1738d4d146513eb" value="form-c42e1dd9656750b4e1738d4d146513eb" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="80054543" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>

No Articles Found

No Articles Found

No Articles Found

I want to begin with a little story that was told to me by a leading executive at Aptech. He was exercising in a gym with a lot of younger people.

Shekhar Kapur’s Bandit Queen didn’t make the cut. Neither did Shaji Karun’s Piravi, which bagged 31 international awards.