Update from supplier in Tahiti

[MarcA]

Hello Marc,

As you can imagine, the situation in Tahiti doesn’t look very good. All people concerned, like pearl producers, wholesalers or jewelers are in difficulties, because of serious decrease in demand. We think that 40 to 50% of producers will give up their activities by the end of the year. We suppose also that there will probably be a shortage of pearls within one or one and a half years.

Concerning the harvest, we would say it is almost as usual, or even better in quality because of increase in round shape pearls. These pearls with nice color is still in demand.
However, people look mostly for SB or CL (ring) shape pearls.
The prices of bigger size pearls (11mm & up) remain almost the same, but always in small quantity.