Revitalising and globally promoting jewelry making in Borj Hammud

L’Orient le Jour highlighted today the jewelry craft making in Lebanon which is a distinctive feature of Borj Hammud, an area which hosts more than 500 jewelry shops.  Borj Hammud was selected by UNIDO within the framework of its current project seeking to develop creative industrial clusters in Lebanon, and for the purpose of reinvigorating that particular industry which has witnessed a 70% drop in export during the past decade.

The said project kicked off in November 2014 in collaboration with the Ministry of Industry.  It benefits from a joint funding of EU 5.6 million from the EU and the Italian cooperation. Thus far, two clusters were created.  The first covers an area of furniture making industry located in the North and the second is the jewelry making agglomeration in Borj Hammud which represents 60% of national jewelry production. The project will seek to enable 220 selected jewelry shops from re-positioning themselves on the international markets. Jewelers and creators will be provided with additional marketing and administrative skills via training workshops, that will allow them to improve their production, introduce new designs and thus, facilitate their mainstreaming in the international markets.

(Source : L’Orient le Jour, August 19th 2015)