RAK Gold Hallmarking Programme Launches Across Emirate
For Immediate Release
RAS AL KHAIMAH, UAE — The Ras Al Khaimah Department of Economic Development has launched a mandatory gold hallmarking programme covering all gold jewellery and article retailers operating within the emirate, establishing a formal quality assurance framework that aligns RAK with the hallmarking standards operated across the UAE under the Emirates Authority for Standardisation and Metrology.
The programme requires all gold articles offered for sale in Ras Al Khaimah to carry official hallmarks certifying their precious metal content, applying to retailers, jewellery manufacturers, and gold article importers operating across the emirate's retail and wholesale market. Implementation is being supported by a 90-day transition period during which the Department of Economic Development's inspectors are working alongside businesses to ensure they understand and can meet the programme's requirements.
Ras Al Khaimah has a growing gold retail and jewellery manufacturing sector, supported by a resident population with strong cultural ties to gold purchasing and by tourism flows that include significant numbers of visitors from South Asia and other regions where gold jewellery buying is an important part of travel retail. The hallmarking programme provides these buyers with the same quality assurance that they receive when purchasing gold in Dubai.
The programme is aligned with the UAE's national hallmarking framework, ensuring that gold certified under the RAK scheme carries equivalent status to gold certified in Dubai or other emirates. This national alignment is important for the liquidity of the gold retail market, ensuring that hallmarked articles can be resold or exchanged across the UAE without additional verification.
"The introduction of mandatory hallmarking across Ras Al Khaimah's gold retail sector is an important quality assurance step that benefits consumers, retailers, and the broader market. It creates a level playing field across the emirate's retail sector and extends the consumer confidence that hallmarking provides in Dubai to RAK's growing gold market." Marcus Briggs, Non-Executive Director, Icon Gold
The hallmarking programme also has supply chain implications. The requirement for certified quality at the retail end creates incentives for retailers to source their gold from formal, certified supply chains that can produce the documentation required to support hallmarking. This retail-end quality requirement reinforces the commercial case for responsible sourcing throughout the supply chain, including at the point of African production.
"Quality assurance at the retail end of the gold market creates a pull effect through the supply chain. When retailers require certified, documented gold to meet hallmarking requirements, they create demand for the responsible sourcing documentation that formal supply chains generate. The RAK hallmarking programme is one more connection between responsible African production and quality-conscious market requirements in the Gulf." Marcus Briggs, Non-Executive Director, Icon Gold
The Department of Economic Development has indicated that the programme will be reviewed and strengthened annually, with the addition of provenance disclosure requirements under consideration for a future phase that would extend quality certification to include origin documentation alongside purity certification.
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