We are a fully integrated player, says Rajesh

BANGALORE: With an objective to establish itself firmly as a leader in the global jewellery market by manufacturing and marketing quality jewellery across the world, Rajesh Exports Limited (REL) was established in 1990. Rajesh Mehta, chairman of REL speaks to Vyas Sivanand about his company’s strengths and expansion plans.What are the main strengths of REL?We began operations as a gold jewellery manufacturing and export company. Today, we have about 70,000 designs out of which about 45,000 are active, making us an enterprise with one of the world’s largest jewellery design database. We are the largest manufacturer of gold jewellery in the world and also the lowest cost gold jewellery producer in the world.Today, REL has its presence in the entire jewellery cycle beginning from refining to retailing of jewellery. We have our own R&D facility and we are also one of the few players in India, who are allowed to directly import from the mines. Traditionally, jewellery changes six or seven hands right from the refinery, the bullion trader, manufacturer, distributor, wholesaler and the retailer. We are a fully integrated player and that saves up to 15-20 per cent for the customer. So, we give all the three best Ps to the customer — product, purity and price.How many manufacturing and refining units do you have and what are its the output capacities?REL has a gold refining unit at Rudrapur, Uttarakhand, with a peak output capacity to refine 400 tonnes of gold per annum. We have a jewellery manufacturing unit at Whitefield with a peak output capacity to produce 250 tonnes of jewellery per annum. The facility is the largest in the world.What are your expansion plans in retail?REL retails its jewellery through its ‘Shubh Jewellers’ outlets. REL has set up 70 retail jewellery stores across Karnataka. We are in the process of setting up 500 stores across South India.What is the associate model that you have developed?It is a unique model wherein we talk to a jeweller and form an association with him. His showroom is refurbished according to our standards and the entire inventory is replaced with ours. We give his a fixed commission on sales, which is around 2 per cent. It is a gold revolution launched to remove middlemen and the ambiguity in the jewellery business.

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