Page 25 - Bullion World Volume 02 Issue 08 August 2022

Bullion World | Volume 2 | Issue 08 | August 2022

Discussion- The Amazing World of Indian Silver Mr Harshit Doshi, Head-Precious
Metals, ICBC India
Moderator: Mr Viraj Didwania, Director, Foresight RBI has nominated a few banks
Bullion to import precious metals. While
we help our clients to import
Panellists: gold and silver, we also perform
Mr Vijay Murthy, CEO Silver, Lead & Minor Metals, several other services. We ensure
Hindustan Zinc Limited guidelines and policies of RBI
Mr Harshit Doshi, ICBC India and DGFT are implemented. We also ensure GST
Mr Dhiaan Srinivasan, Director-Business compliance of our clients. Banks have given comfort
Development, Emerald Jewels
to the suppliers. Banks have also given comfort to the
customers. One recent example is the TDS collection
Mr Viraj Didwania, Director, by banks. Customers know that they would get back
Foresight Bullion: India produced the TDS that we collect and remit to the government
690 tonnes and imported 3043 on time. Banks would soon be permitted to function
tonnes silver during 2021. Of the at IIBX by the regulator. Through that, we can offer
total demand for silver in India, additional services to our customers. There is a lot
jewellery demand accounts for more to do in the industrial use of silver in India. Banks
44%, silverware 18%, physical are open to supporting the industry in that.
investment 20%, and coins and
medals 5%. Industrial demand comprises electrical Mr Dhiaan Srinivasan, Director-
contacts & electronics (11%) and brazing alloys & Business Development, Emerald
solder (2%). Two new channels were made available Jewels
for retail investors in silver – silver ETFs and digital The end consumer is the most
silver (allocated as well as unallocated). Three silver important person one should start
ETFs are operational since the end of 2021, fairly with. Young customers want a
successfully. large collection of designs. Silver,
http://goldconference.in/presentation/Day1/Viraj_ being competitively priced, lends
Didwania.pdf
itself to design innovation and range. While in terms
of turnover silver jewellery business may be small, it
Mr Vijay Murthy, CEO Silver, provides a lot more opportunities for innovation and
Lead & Minor Metals, also gives more profits. One challenge is the tarnishing
Hindustan Zinc Limited: of silver jewellery over time. If we find a solution to
We are the only primary Zinc,
Lead and silver mine producer in that problem, we can take a sizeable market share
the country. Silver has been an from brass and copper jewellery as silver jewellery
exciting story for HZL, especially has better resale value. The growth rate in the silver
after we found silver in Sidhedurg, jewellery business, in my view, is much higher than the
near Udaipur through primary exploration. Primary growth in the gold jewellery business. With the change
exploration in precious metals is a grossly under- in demographic, the silver jewellery business has great
invested sector, unlike other sectors such as coal promise. Silver is the new gold.
and oil. There is a need to bring in more investments
into exploration. HZL carried out exploration between Having said this, the silver jewellery business cannot
2007 and 2012. After getting all clearances, we be modelled the way the gold jewellery business
started operations in 2014. The ore body is rich with is being done. Especially given the price of gold,
100 gm silver per ton at the mine level; at the lead inventory management always comes to mind in the
concentrated stage, we get about 2.3 to 2.5 kg silver gold jewellery business. So it has become volume-
per ton. HZL has been producing between 650 to 700 driven and low margin. Silver business is design-
tonnes. Planning to move to 725 tonnes. Our focus driven and high margin. When the design is the most
is to grow domestic consumption. Towards that, we important selection criterion, the choice of metals
would love to work with players in electrical contact, becomes secondary.
silverware, conductors, cutlery or any of the upcoming
applications. We are here to serve the country and
work towards import substitution.

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