Tuesday 7 September 2021
Export prices per gram have also hit a historic low, dropping from 600 Fcfp in 2018 to 270 Fcfp in 2020. Ferdinand Ching, a pearl dealer, explains that this price collapse is partly linked to declining pearl quality, attributed to factors such as lagoon pollution and overproduction.
The situation is further exacerbated by a critical shortage of grafters, a major challenge for local producers. The absence of Chinese grafters, stranded in China, has directly impacted production, leading to a sharp decline in pearl output. By 2020, the number of producers had also decreased by 80 compared to 2018.
Despite these challenges, industry professionals remain cautiously optimistic, emphasizing that resolving the grafter shortage swiftly is crucial to ensuring the survival and sustainability of French Polynesia's pearl farming sector.
Thursday 2 September 2021
According to the latest studies published by the French Polynesian Institute of Statistics (ISPF), the crisis began well before COVID-19, with signs of decline as early as 2018.
The statistics are alarming: the number of pearl oyster producers dropped by 8% in 2020, following a 1% decline in 2019, and farming areas shrank by 12.7% over three years. Pearl production also fell by 26%, dropping from 9.1 million to 6.7 million post-production inspected pearls.
The price of raw pearls plummeted by 51% between 2019 and 2020, falling from 485 Fcfp to just 270 Fcfp, largely due to reduced global demand and the closure of trade routes with Asia. Exports collapsed by 70.4% over three years, with a 50% drop in 2020 alone, totaling only 2.4 billion Fcfp.
Despite these alarming figures, early 2021 data shows a slight rebound, with exports already surpassing 2020 levels. These signs of recovery offer a glimmer of hope for the sector’s future, though structural reforms remain necessary to stabilize the industry in the long term.
