Japan’s retail jewelry market shrank by a double-digit figure to a record-low value under 1 trillion yen last year and is likely to shrink further to below 900 billion yen this year due to the recession, an industry group said.
 
Estimated at 997 billion yen in 2008, down 11.8% from the year before, the market plunged as much as 70% from its peak of about 3 trillion yen in 1991 and is at the smallest since the survey began in 1984, according to the Japan Jewellery Association.