Meng Shuke, vice-president of the Longsheng Chicken-blood Jade Association, displays one of the pieces in his collection of chicken-blood jade.[HUO YAN/CHINA DAILY]

Rising costs

Moreover, the cost of excavation permits issued by the local government has risen rapidly, Li said. According to the Guilin Chicken-blood Stone Association, two excavation permits for chicken-blood jade, each with a benchmark price of 3 million yuan, sold for 28 million yuan and 38 million yuan at a 2013 auction organized by the local government.

Another downside is that the inclement weather in the sub-tropical, mountainous region means mining companies can only operate for five months a year at most because their sites are mostly located deep in the mountains.

"The market price of the jade is affected by many factors," Li said. He added that the intensification of the central government's anti-corruption campaign in the past two years has affected the popularity of the precious stone. Media reports concerning corrupt officials often note that they were given pieces of chicken-blood jade by businesspeople as bribes.

The rising price has also attracted a large number of illegal miners, most of whom are villagers who live near the mines, he said.

Lin Ruiming, a security manager at a mining company in Sanmen, said illegal mining and theft still exist in the mining areas despite regular patrols conducted by a 24-member law enforcement team established by the local government.

"They (the illegal miners) have advanced tools, such battery-powered hammers that can be used anywhere," he said, adding that his patrols often encounter villagers in the act of stealing the company's minerals and are forced to drive them away.

"The patrols sent by the government can't keep them out altogether," he said. "The thieves and the patrols are just playing games of hide and seek."

Raising the bar

According to Meng Shuke, vice-president of the Longsheng Chicken-blood Jade Association, more than 200 enterprises in Longsheng are involved in the industry, but most of them are small and at the lower end of the industrial chain. Moreover, poor local polishing techniques mean that most of the chicken-blood jade sold in the county is offloaded as raw materials or as primary products such as seal stamps, which only bring low profits, he said.

"We plan to invite professional polishers from other provinces to hold training sessions for the locals to help them improve their skills and raise the quality of their jade products," he added.

She, the storeowner from Guilin, said Longsheng lacks a jade-processing tradition, which means he has to offer high wages to attract polishers from other provinces, such as Fujian, to process the raw material. "At present, most of the products we sell are just rough cuts," he said.

Meng said the association plans to work with the local government to establish a 20,000-sqm market in Longsheng that will open in early 2017 and will accommodate all the private jade businesses in the county.

"Our aim is that Longshen's chicken-blood jade industry will enjoy an orderly and regulated development and rise to the high end of the industrial chain," he said.

Contact the writers at huoyan@chinadaily.com.cn and wangxiaodong@chinadaily.com.cn