$1.19bn of gold jewellery carries India's September exports

Total gem and jewellery shipments rose 9.4% to $2.95 billion, with studded gold up 50.2%. Cut and polished natural diamonds fell 5.4% in dollars while lab-grown polished rose 40.7%.

By Carat Capital

18 October 2026 Corrected

What changed

Gold carried the month, not diamonds. India's gem and jewellery exports rose 9.4% to $2.95 billion in September. Gold jewellery climbed 34% to $1.19 billion while cut and polished natural diamonds fell 5.4% to $1.29 billion.

What it means

If you export plain gold to the Gulf: Over six months plain gold jewellery fell 8.8% to $2.53 billion while the gold price rose 31.2%. The council's chairman names Middle East demand as the difficulty.
If you cut natural polished: September's 5.4% dollar decline was a 2.2% rise in rupees. Over six months value fell 7% while volume rose 4.6% to 8.398 million carats.
What this is not: A volume count. Every line is dollar value, so a 34% rise can mean more gold, dearer gold, or both.

Key figures

Gold jewellery exports, Septemberup 34%, the month's standout category	$1.19bn
All gem and jewellery exportsup 9.4% year on year	$2.95bn
Studded gold jewelleryup 50.2%	$812.6m
Gold, six-month average per ounceup 31.2% year on year	$4,415.70

Source: GJEPC's own statement of 14 October 2026, re-read, 200, 38,669 bytes, fetched 06:00 EDT 20 October 2026, and JCK Online's report of 15 October 2026, 114,249 bytes. The two agree. Category shares are Carat Capital's division.

Studded gold led everything

Half again. Studded gold jewellery exports jumped 50.2% to $812.6 million in September, the largest single move in any category the council reported.

Plain gold rose too. Plain gold jewellery exports increased 8.8% to $378 million for the month, a far smaller gain than the studded line beside it.

The category total. Gold jewellery overall climbed 34% to $1.19 billion, which the source names the standout category of the month.

September's categories, and the six months behind themGJEPC statement, 14 October 2026, and JCK Online, 15 October 2026. Shares of the monthly total are Carat Capital's division

Category	September	Change	Six months, April to September
All gem and jewellery	$2.95bn	+9.4%	$14.3bn, +3.1%
Gold jewellery	$1.19bn	+34%	$6.23bn, +11.37%
Studded gold jewellery	$812.6m	+50.2%	$3.69bn, +31.3%
Plain gold jewellery	$378m	+8.8%	$2.53bn, -8.8%
Cut and polished natural	$1.29bn	-5.4% in dollars	$5.81bn, -7%
Polished lab-grown	$151.4m	+40.7%	$685.1m, +17.1%
Silver jewellery	$134.5m	-12.49%	$729.3m, +23.1%

Notes on this table

Two figures in this table are 8.8% and they move in opposite directions, which is why both are printed with their period attached: plain gold jewellery exports ROSE 8.8% in September to $378 million and FELL 8.8% across the six months to $2.53 billion. They are different numbers for different windows and should not be read as one. On the monthly total, gold jewellery at $1.19 billion is 40.3% of $2.95 billion and cut and polished natural at $1.29 billion is 43.7%, on this paper's division; lab-grown polished at $151.4 million is 5.1%. The three largest categories named therefore account for about 89% of the month, leaving roughly a ninth across silver, coloured stones and everything else.

Natural polished fell in dollars only

Two currencies, two answers. Cut and polished natural diamond exports fell 5.4% year on year in dollars to $1.29 billion in September, but rose 2.2% measured in Indian rupees.

Lab-grown grew faster. Polished lab-grown diamond exports increased 40.7% to $151.4 million for the month, from a base about a ninth the size of natural polished.

Volume beat value. Across six months natural polished export value fell 7% to $5.81 billion while volume rose 4.6% to 8.398 million carats.

The chairman names a recovery

Three reasons given. GJEPC chairman Kirit Bhansali pointed to improving diamond prices, higher volumes and growth in rupee terms as signs of a 'gradual recovery' in the segment.

Bullion hurt plain gold. Over six months plain gold jewellery exports fell 8.8% to $2.53 billion as gold prices rose 31.2% year on year to $4,415.70 an ounce.

The Gulf drags. Bhansali said demand remained challenging, particularly in the Middle East, which the source names an important destination for India's plain gold jewellery.

What to watch

Mid-November 2026October's monthly release, which would show whether studded gold holds a growth rate above 50%.
OngoingWhether natural polished turns positive in dollars. It has risen in rupees while falling in dollars.
MonthlyWhether studded gold keeps its six-month gain of 31.3%. The council's chairman credits the India-UK trade agreement and lower US tariffs.

The story so far

Go deeper

Corrections1 note

Correction, 20 October 2026: an earlier version of this article said GJEPC's own pages carried none of these figures, so the article was a single-source filing on the trade press. That was wrong. GJEPC published its own statement on 14 October at gjepc.org, linked from its homepage. Re-read at 06:00 EDT on 20 October, 38,669 bytes, it carries the $2.95 billion and 9.43% ('2.95' 7 hits, '9.43' 8), gold jewellery at $1.19 billion, up 34.01% ('1.19 billion' 1, '34.01' 1), and the studded, plain, polished and lab-grown lines. It is now cited as the primary, with JCK Online as the second reading. Two table cells that read 'Not given' now carry the council's figures: six-month gold jewellery $6.23bn, up 11.37%, and September silver jewellery $134.5m, down 12.49%. Where the error came from: the two GJEPC pages the desk opened were the wrong doors, and the council's news page was not read. What was right as published: every figure in the article. Found by this paper's standards desk on 19 October 2026.

What would change this call

The October figures. GJEPC's own statement and JCK's report agree on every figure here, so the risk is not the reading but the trend: if studded gold slows sharply in October, September's 50.2% was a single strong month, not a shift in what India exports.

Why a dollar fall and a rupee rise are both true

India exports jewellery priced in dollars and keeps its accounts in rupees, so every export figure has two growth rates and the gap between them is the currency's move over the same window. September's cut and polished natural diamond exports fell 5.4% in dollars and rose 2.2% in rupees, which is not a contradiction: it is the rupee having weakened against the dollar by roughly the difference. Neither figure is the more honest one. A Surat cutter paying wages in rupees experienced a rising business; an Antwerp dealer paying in dollars experienced a cheaper supplier. The same two-currency effect runs the other way through the gold jewellery line, and it is the reason the six-month plain gold figure looks so much worse than the monthly one. Plain gold jewellery is sold largely by weight with a thin making charge, so when bullion rises 31.2% year on year to $4,415.70 an ounce, the dollar value of a given tonnage rises while the tonnage a buyer can afford falls. Studded jewellery carries stones and labour that do not move with the gold price, so the same bullion move compresses it far less. That is the mechanism behind a month in which studded gold grew 50.2% and plain gold grew 8.8%, and behind a half-year in which plain gold fell 8.8% outright. The metal did not help both lines equally because the metal is a different share of each.

Method

The figures were read from GJEPC's own statement, 'India's Gem & Jewellery Exports Continue to Grow, Rising 9.43% to US$ 2.95 Billion in September 2026', dated Oct 14, 2026 in its body, at https://gjepc.org/news_detail.php?news=india-s-gem-jewellery-exports-continue-to-grow-rising-9-43-to-us-2-95-billion-in-september-2026-1, re-read, 200, 38,669 bytes, fetched 06:00 EDT 20 October 2026. Greps on those bytes: '2.95' 7 hits, '9.43' 8, '1.19 billion' 1, '34.01' 1, '1.29 billion' 1, '5.44' 1, '151.43' 1, '40.72' 1, '5.81 billion' 2, '6.96' 2, '4.64' 1, 'Kirit Bhansali' 1. The second reading is JCK Online's Take 5 column of 15 October 2026, fetched 18 October, 200, 114,249 bytes, whose rounded figures ('9.4%', '1.19 billion', '50.2%', '812.6', '378 million', '5.4%', '40.7%', '8.398', '4,415.70', '2.53 billion', 'gradual recovery') each return one hit. On 18 October the desk opened gjepc.org/gem-and-jewellery-export-import-data.php (32,404 bytes) and gjepc.org/press_release.php (196,776 bytes); the statement sits on the council's news page, linked from its homepage. ARCHIVE, by entity and period: 'GJEPC' returned 31 hits in Carat Capital's archive on 18 October; the newest, covering the Unnati centre and two 10 October items, carry no monthly export data. '1.19 billion', '812.6', '14.3 billion' and '8.398' returned 0 hits. Same council, new reporting period: NEW.

Sources2