Weekly Market Brief
Loose emerald width being measured
March 2026 — Week 04
Market Snapshot
This week’s market signals suggest a gradual increase in demand for aquamarine in China as the market moves toward the summer season. This trend has been reflected in increased trader activity across online gemstone platforms, with more listings, images, and promotional posts featuring aquamarine.
Pricing has also shown a modest upward movement. For Santa Maria color aquamarine in the 1–2 carat range, current asking prices are trending around RMB 700–800 per carat.
What This Means for Zambian Miners
This creates a good opportunity for a cautious increase in aquamarine rough and faceted stock, particularly in deep blue, high-clarity material.
For best marketability:
Focus on Santa Maria blue material with strong color and good transparency
Prioritize eye-clean faceted stones
Keep faceted parcels to up to 50 carats
Keep rough parcels to up to 50 grams, properly sorted
At this stage, only strong-color, good-quality material is likely to attract serious buyer interest. Lower grades are unlikely to perform well in the current market.
Export & Compliance Update
Please continue monitoring our weekly updates for developments related to China’s stated duty-free access policy for African imports. While the policy direction is positive, the exact implementation process and its practical effect on African and Zambian gemstone traders have not yet been clearly confirmed.
For Zambian exporters, there is also some potential for DHL shipping delays from Lusaka to China due to the current geopolitical situation in the Middle East. At the same time, overall China–Zambia shipping costs remained stable this week, with no formal service change or major route disruption announced.
Opportunity of the Week
There is a real opportunity for quick-turn sales in aquamarine, especially for well-cut stones starting from 1 carat and above. Larger, high-quality stones appear to have an even stronger chance of attracting faster interest.
This shift may also support rising buyer attention toward other colorful gemstones, particularly rubellite and tourmaline.
Practical Tip
Before shipping, have stones weighed and graded by the team at GLPTC in Ndola so that color quality and general stone grading are clearly documented and better understood by potential buyers.
Closing
We continue to provide gemstone and jewelry market intelligence relevant to the Zambian gemstone mining and trading industry, with the goal of improving information flow, market understanding, and trade facilitation.
This briefing will be published every Friday.