Indonesia produces South Sea Pearls that are cultivated from Pinctada maxima, the largestspecies of oyster. As an archipelago with a pristine environment, Indonesia provides the optimum environment for Pinctada maxima to produce high quality pearls. Indonesia’s Pinctada maxima produce pearls with more than a dozen of color shades.

The rarest and most valuable pearls produced are the ones with gold and silver colors. Various range of delicate shades, among others, silver, champagne, brilliant white, pink and gold, with the Imperial Gold Pearl as the most magnificent of all pearls.

The Imperial Gold Color Pearl produced by oysters cultivated in pristine Indonesian waters is in reality the Queen of South Sea Pearl. Although Indonesian waters is the home for South Sea pearl, a regulation is needed to control domestic trade and export so as to ensure the quality and price of pearl.

The government and related parties have built stronger relationship to solve the challenge. In the case of Chinese pearls, which are cultured from fresh water mussels and suspected to have low grade, the government has taken some precautions such as by issuing the Fishery and Maritime Affairs Ministerial Regulations No. 8/2003 on Pearl Quality Control. The measure is necessary as Chinese pearls which have low quality but look very similar to Indonesian pearls. can become a threat to Indonesian pearl production centers in Bali and Lombok.

The export of Indonesian pearls has shown significant increase in the period of 2008-2012 with an average annual growth of 19.69%. In 2012, most of the exports was dominated by natural pearls at 51%.22. Cultured pearls, unworked, followed in

distant second with 31.82% and cultured pearls, worked, at 16.97%. Indonesia export of pearls in 2008 was only valued at US$14.29 million before significantly increased to US$22.33 million in 2009.