HK jewelry chain to add links in the mainland

Chow Tai Fook operates nine jewelry plants and four diamond-cutting factories, and employs about 34,100 workers throughout the world, with most being in China, Singapore, Malaysia, and South Africa.

The company is building a new jewelry park in Wuhan, which will be spread across 40 hectares and is set to become the largest integrated production base catering to the needs of China's fast-growing jewelry industry.

The park will contain a production plant, national logistics center, sales exhibition and visitor center, craft-training center and other support facilities. It is due to be completed in 2016.

"Developing the jewelry park in Wuhan will further centralize and standardize Chow Tai Fook's production-monitoring process, and improve the vertically integrated business model to provide a wider range of jewelry products," Wong said.

He added that the park will employ 5,000 people and create output value of 15 billion yuan ($2.46 billion) every year.

With online sales growing, Chow Tai Fook also has stepped up in the field of e-commerce, with the goal of making its site more than simply a transactional platform.

According to Wong, e-commerce can be a powerful tool to serve as a digital marketing, branding and customer relations channel, especially for the younger generation.

To that end, the company has enhanced its system for analyzing online shoppers' preferences and behavior through their browsing patterns and purchasing records to cater to their tastes.