Production of cultured South
Sea pearl has been started in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma,
since 1954.
In southern part of Myanmar, there is Myeik Archipelago,
formerly known as Mergui Archipelago in the Tanintharyi
Division. It consists of 800 islands and the total area is
25,600 sq. kilometres. Almost all of the islands were virgin
lands and they have been well known since ancient times, because
of their inhabitants, Pinctada maxima oysters.
The first divers for Pinctada maxima shells were Salone
people wandering from place to place among the islands in small
wooden boats in search of fishing grounds. Then British
Government promulgated fishing regulations for collection of
shells in 1890 and in 1912 there were 114 vessels diving for the
shells, including 69 from foreign countries.
In 1954, the Japanese man Mr. K. Takashima established the
"South Sea Pearl Company" and started culturing of pearl in
Myanmar. It was a joint venture with local company. Round pearl
cultivation commenced immediately in October 1954. After
culturing for three years at the seabed pearls were harvested in
1957. Those were the first harvested South Sea pearl in the
World after World War Two and 2466 pieces of pearls weighing
1637.89 momme were brought back to Japan. "They were considered
as the world's finest, were the most sought after and fetched
the highest prices". Mr. Andy Müller mentioned in his book
"Cultured Pearls, The First Hundred Years. Andy Müller, one of
the prominent figures of pearl world had visited 20 times to
Myanmar to buy Myanmar South Sea Pearls. From 1958 onwards
Japanese harvested once in every three months until 1963. In
December 1966, Myanmar technicians harvested 4281 pieces of
pearl weighing 3091.50 momme, and those were the last Japanese
seeded pearls in Myanmar.
Young Myanmar biologists began to insert oysters by
themselves without Japanese help in 1964 and became successful
in 1966. By harvesting Japanese seeded pearls they knew where to
put the nucleus but they found it difficult to make a pearl sac.
With the help of physicians they tried grafting method and
called it auto-graft method. They are the only
seeding-technicians who were not trained by Japanese. The first
commercial harvest was in 1969 and obtained 3485 pieces of South
Sea pearls weighing 1919.70 momme. Since then Myanmar South Sea
pearls were sold at the Myanmar Gems, Jade and Pearl Emporium
and able to fulfill the demand of connoisseurs from all over the
world.
Myanmar's production reached the peak in 1983 harvesting over
17 kans of finest pearls. Further attempt for promotion failed
to materialise owing to inadequate supply and high mortality of
oysters due to epidemic of bacterial infection. Recovery was
tediously slow and took about one decade.
Currently we have three foreign and two local joint venture
companies conducting pearl culturing as well as oyster hatchery.
As a result, first upturn of production was witnessed in 2001 by
producing 24 kans of pearls.
