China Fort: Source of Gems

China Fort, near Beruwala on Sri Lanka’s west coast, is no longer a Fort and it is not on the usual tourist trail, but it is part of the island’s gem-trading heritage where experts go to buy and sell precious stones worth millions.

The visitor to China Fort, which attracts more than 2,000 dealers on the main gem trading days of Wednesday and Saturday, can hardly believe that the casual business being done in the town’s main street is the source of a profitable, international enterprise. China Fort has boomed because of the new direction the island’s gem trade has taken, with dealers sourcing rough stones to be cut and polished as precious gems not just from Sri Lanka but from Africa as well. Rough stones imported from Africa now constitute about 40 per cent of the gems cut and polished in China Fort, then re-exported to buyers around the world.

The business of collecting and selling gems to traders from overseas has been conducted from the earliest times by the Arabs of Beruwala who originally sourced precious stones in Ratnapura. Chinese merchants who prized gems from Sri Lanka’s Gem City built an ancient settlement – hence the name China Fort – where Muslim jewellers cut and polished the stones for export.

In China Fort today men in white sarongs approach buyers standing on street corners and unwrap a gem from its paper envelope. While some potential purchasers hold the gem up to the sun, others glance at it and shake their head. Scarcely a word is exchanged and the ambience is one of dedication and trust. Indeed, when a buyer is offered a rough stone or gem he wants and the price is softly agreed, no money is exchanged. That happens later at the buyer’s home.

Developed over centuries, with the passion and experience handed down from generation to generation, this modest, hidden enclave of China Fort has become the thriving centre of Sri Lanka’s gem cutting and polishing industry, and a little-known tourist attraction.