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Alfred Martin

New Chairman for Perles de Tahiti

Perles de Tahiti, a trade organization dedicated to promoting Tahitian black pearls internationally, has a new chairman: Alfred Martin, head of pearl producer assocation Poe Rava Nui.

Martin Coeroli, general manager of Perles de Tahiti, says that Martin plans to work on the pearl producer side as well as marketing. “He is planning to find the means to increase the pearl prices at the production level. They are still low, even though the pearl prices have increased at the wholesale level internationally,” Coeroli explains.

On the marketing side, Coeroli adds, Martin intends to continue the promotional policies of his predecessors and will request extra funding from the French Polynesian government — which funds Perles de Tahiti. Much of the money for Perles de Tahiti’s activities comes from the government’s pearl export duty, and Martin would like to see the percentage of the tax allocated to the association raised from 35 percent to 50 percent.

Martin replaces previous chairman Robert Wan, the chairman of Tahiti Perles, the largest single pearl producer in French Polynesia. The chairman’s seat rotates every two years between a representative of the French Polynesian goverment, the Professional Association of Pearl Producers (SPPP), and Poe Rava Nui. Wan was representing the SPPP, whose members are the largest pearl companies in the island nation.

Poe Rava Nui is the oldest of three pearl producer groups in French Polynesia that represent small- and medium-size pearl farmers; the other two are Poe o Tahiti Nui (POTN) and the Association of Small and Medium Size Producers in French Polynesia (SPMPPF). Recently, the POTN and the SPMPPF joined Perles de Tahiti, and they will rotate in to the chairmanship in two years.

July/August 2006 • Dubai: Color in the City of Gold • Reader's Choice Award: Hometown Girl • Gem Imports: U.S., Europe, Japan • In This Issue