The awards, which were earlier known as 40th Annual Awards, have been renamed as the 40th Indian Gem and Jewellery Awards. The jury of the upcoming 40th Indian Gem & Jewellery Awards, met in Mumbai to finalise the names of the winners in all the categories. The awards ceremony will be held in Mumbai at Jamshedji Bhabha Theatre, NCPA on October 5th, 2013. The jury members who selected the winners include Nirupa Bhatt, Managing Director (India & ME), GIA; K. Subrahmanyam, Executive Director, Union Bank of India and Pawan Bindal, Director, Dun & Bradsheet.%% The GJEPC’s 40th Indian Gem & Jewellery Awards, which was exclusively open for GJEPC members, will felicitate excellent and meritorious performances of gems and jewellery exporters, on the basis of their export performance, value additions, employment generation and investment on R&D among other parameters during the year 2012-13. “We finally have the names of the winners and I would like to extend my appreciation to all the members of the jury for their extensive support and times in helping us make this decision. The response this year has been very encouraging with over 250 nominations and selecting 31 winners was a challenging task,” said Vipul Shah, Chairman, Gem & Jewellery Export Promotion Council. GJEPC received 270 nominations of which 31 winners were selected for each of the awards. A total of 31 awards had been envisaged in the categories of precious metal, jewellery – plain & studded, silver jewellery, cut & polished diamonds, costume / fashion jewellery, coloured gemstones, sales to foreign tourists and synthetic stone. Apart from these categories, 9 special awards have been given based on special classifications such as emerging performer, women entrepreneur, lifetime achievement, etc.%% This year the process of selecting award winners was even more robust and rigorous considering new methodology and judging criteria had been adopted in identifying the winning companies. A proprietary quantitative model developed by D&B, has been used to select the award winners, based primarily on computation of composite scores calculated by considering various financial and quantitative indicators. Besides recognising the efforts of the exporters, GJEPC will also honour the top foreign buyers from across the globe in diamond, gold and coloured gemstones, international trade association, agency supplying gold to exporters and the banks financing the gems and jewellery players. In addition to the acknowledgment of their global standards, GJEPC will award those who contribute to the overall benefit of the Indian gems and jewellery industry.