MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Can art save Uruguay's gem mines?

A Uruguayan mining company is turning to art to beat the effects of the global economic slowdown on its amethyst exports.

The company has commissioned artists to create sculptures and other objects using the semi-precious stones to add value to its sales. It hopes to stimulate demand which has been weakened by the economic crisis in key markets such as the US, Taiwan, Hong Kong, China and India.

Uruguay, which is one of the world’s main producers of amethysts, exports on average $4m (?2.8m) worth of the stones each year. Although it is not a large amount, it still puts Uruguay among the biggest amethyst producers, which also include Brazil and Russia. It also represents an important income for people living in the poor northern state of Artigas, on Uruguay’s border with Brazil.

“Asia is one of the main buyers of amethysts in the world, because they believe the stones turn negative energy into positive energy,“ explains Juan Francisco Paulo, director of Le Stage, a mining company that specialises in semi-precious stones.

“Once someone becomes well off they buy one stone for every room in the house.“

However, being “purely ornamental products”, amethysts are “the first thing people stop buying in a crisis”, he says.

Special care

Amethysts are appreciated for their intense purple colour. The stones are sold mainly in their natural state as crystal stones or geodes.

Prices vary according to stone colour, hardness and size. A kilogram (2lb 2oz) of amethysts is worth between $1 and $8 in Uruguay but can fetch as much as $150 in China.

Artworks created from the stones can cost up to $60,000.

“No one has ever incorporated amethysts into art. And it’s something indigenous, because it is Uruguayan,“ says Nicole Vanderhoeght, an artist whose works combine the stones with iron, wood and ceramics.

She says handling amethysts requires special care.

“For us it was a challenge to make them shine as intensely as the other materials we were using, so as to keep the stones’ prestige while keeping the value of the work itself.“

Competitiveness

Uruguay has been mining amethysts since the 1970s, but only the equivalent of 2% to 3% of its reserves. A larger production would saturate the market and push prices down, Juan Francisco Paulo says.

“Uruguay is the only country where stones have an intense purple colour in their natural state. In Brazil, Russia and some countries in Africa, the quality of the colour is inferior,“ he says.

Most of the Uruguayan stones are exported in their natural state, because labour costs of polishing them in Uruguay are much higher than in Asia.

Uruguayan competitiveness has also been affected by the production of synthetic stones in other countries, such as Russia.

And with some 40% of the Uruguayan production sent to agents in Brazil - companies in Uruguay get considerably less than if the stones were sold direct.

So the government of Uruguay is pushing the mining companies to do more.

“We are trying to improve the presentation of the products and issue them with a certificate of quality. We are also giving support to companies which try to sell their stones at fairs in other countries,“ says Miguel Muro, head of Dinamige, the national agency for mining and geology.

Experts say the future of the industry lies in improving direct sales to buyers - a process they hope to have started through this scheme to sell the semi-precious stones through the art world.

By Veronica Psetizki - BBC Mundo - Uruguay