[Caitlin]

Here's a link to a really excellent, brief but comprehensive, report on Chinese freshwater pearls by Fred Ward

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/pearl/freshwater.html

There are also some other pearl articles linked to this one.

[purepearls]

I think he poses some excellent questions about the future market for pearls, especially for the Chinese versus Japanese pearl trends.

What I'm concerned with is the probable increase in the value of the RMB in the coming months.

The first increase was only 2%, but the speculation on the street in Shanghai is that it will increase by 25%. If the price of the pearls don't go down due to high production, then the freshwater pearls are going to cost us 25% more.

While the cost differential to akoyas will still be a good spread, every percentage point can hurt.

Bill