【Shanwei, Gua】Southern Daily | Colorful Gems Gather in Shanwei, Shining Brightly Across the Global Chain

In the deep autumn of Shanwei, with a gentle sea breeze and brilliant sunshine, the 2025 China·Shanwei Colored Gemstone Industry Development Conference, themed “Colorful Gems Gather in Shanwei, Shining Brightly Across the Global Chain,” is set to open in Haifeng County on November 1st. This is not only the first comprehensive showcase of Shanwei’s gold, silver, and jewelry industry but also a significant milestone in its transition from “behind the scenes” to the “forefront.” This bright pearl embedded in the South China Sea is riding the east wind of the “Hundred Counties, Thousand Towns, and Ten Thousand Villages High-Quality Development Project,” and with the ambition of becoming the “Capital of Chinese Colored Gems” and “Capital of Chinese Jewelry,” it is dazzling the world on the global jewelry stage.

With the rise of the “homebody economy,” China’s jewelry industry is welcoming a new wave of consumption. Industry data shows that in the first half of this year, national retail sales of gold, silver, and jewelry from units above the designated size reached 194.8 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 11.3%, with its growth rate ranking 7th among 16 major categories of consumer goods.
The Shanwei colored gemstone market, as a “barometer” of China’s jewelry consumption, accounts for over 70% of the global processing volume for its crystal-clear products. Nationally, 3 out of every 10 pieces of gold and silver jewelry come from Shanwei.

How can Shanwei, which does not produce a single gemstone, occupy a prominent position in the global jewelry industry landscape?
The answer lies in differentiated competition. Unlike Shenzhen, which is firmly established in jewelry design technology and innovative design concepts, and Guangzhou Panyu, which has become a global jewelry supply chain base through manufacturing breakthroughs, Shanwei has carved out a new path with its high cost-performance advantage, exuding a unique “gemstone aura” in the global colored gemstone niche field.
The origins of Shanwei’s jewelry industry can be traced back to 1980. With approval from the People’s Bank of China, Guangdong began developing the “processing with supplied materials” business for gold and silver jewelry. Hong Kong jewelry merchants sent the first jewelry orders. Under the leadership of compatriot businessmen from Hong Kong and Macau, pioneering entrepreneurs from Shanwei bravely ventured into Shenzhen, accumulating experience in jewelry processing. As their business capabilities gradually matured, these entrepreneurs keenly seized the cost advantages of their hometown, Shanwei, in terms of labor, land, and other production factors. They successively returned to towns like Haifeng Ketan and Luhe, establishing small-scale family-based processing workshops, importing raw stones from abroad, and undertaking simple cutting and polishing subcontracting services. This “two ends outside” model (importing raw materials, exporting finished products) laid the foundation for Shanwei to become the “World Colored Gemstone Factory.”
In the tide of reform and opening up, Shanwei’s gold and silver jewelry processing enterprises rapidly increased to over a thousand. They not only expanded production scale but also continuously improved their craftsmanship, gradually forming a complete industrial chain from raw material procurement, design, processing, production to sales, ushering in a rapid development “golden period.” Hundreds of types of raw gemstones, such as tourmaline, crystal, southern red agate, and sea bamboo, converged here. Shanwei leaped to become an important semi-precious stone processing base in eastern Guangdong.

In a “Cloud Jewelry” live broadcast room, host Dong Na displayed a crystal bracelet. In less than 10 minutes, 7,000 items were sold out. Over the past three years, its average monthly GMV (Gross Merchandise Volume) reached 400 million yuan, ranking among the top three in Douyin live streaming带货达人list.
This is a vivid snapshot of Shanwei’s jewelry industry embracing the digital economy.

The core of successful live-streamed jewelry transactions lies in trust, and the foundation of trust is quality control. The secret of the Haifeng Douyin E-commerce Live Streaming Base lies in its integrated quality inspection, warehousing, and distribution center (QIC). The base collaborates with three authoritative testing institutions, including the Guangdong Zhongguang National Inspection Jewelry and Jade Precious Metal Testing Center, to provide appraisal for jewelry items ordered on Douyin, such as yellow gold, diamonds, Hetian jade, and pearls, with all jewelry products priced above 100 yuan undergoing certification.

This means that every piece of Shanwei jewelry reaching consumers comes with an official quality inspection certificate, cutting off the possibility of counterfeit or substandard goods circulating from the source. After more than three years of development, the base’s daily online transaction volume has increased from 1.5 million yuan to 3 million yuan, attracting over 1,000 e-commerce live streaming merchants to settle in. Under the wave of digitalization, Shanwei’s jewelry sales model has been completely reshaped. According to industry estimates, about 70% of Shanwei’s jewelry is sold via live-streaming e-commerce. In the first seven months of this year, Shanwei’s jewelry transaction live streaming sales reached 13.2 billion yuan, with the Douyin e-commerce live streaming base averaging over 20,000 transactions daily.
While traditional jewelry enterprises are still struggling with the heavy-asset model, Shanwei enterprises have already taken the lead.