War disrupts travel, 10 exhibitors and Iranian mission miss Hong Kong fair

Roughly 10 exhibitors and an Iranian buying mission were absent from the Hong Kong International Jewellery Show after flight disruptions linked to the war, exhibitors told the South China Morning Post. The event opened on Wednesday, March 4, 2026, at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre and ran alongside the Hong Kong International Diamond, Gem & Pearl Show at AsiaWorld-Expo.

Buyers nevertheless queued at the Convention and Exhibition Centre, a scene captured by photographer Sam Tsang, as organisers reported only a "small" dip in participants. The two shows together featured about 4,000 exhibitors from over 40 countries and regions, a scale that organisers cited to contextualise any shortfall in attendance.

Exhibitors on the ground painted a sharper picture. The Post reported that at least two firms warned of fewer clients because of travel disruption caused by the war in Iran, and one United Arab Emirates-based wholesaler, Lumex, provided granular details of how the disruption translated into business losses. Paritosh Doshi, chief operating officer of Lumex, predicted that sales for his business at the show would drop by at least 25 per cent.

Doshi travelled to Hong Kong from India with his wife after his original plan to have a UAE-based team run the Lumex booth "had fallen apart due to flight disruptions caused by the war." He captured the regional ripple effect in blunt terms: "I am sure there will be fewer people visiting because Israel is shut too, so none of the Israelis will come in either," he said. "None of the people from the United Arab Emirates and around it will be here, so I think the show will be slow because of that."

The operational impact extended beyond the fair floor. He added that "Lumex’s imports into Dubai and its shipments to clients had also been placed on hold," a pause that signals immediate supply-chain consequences for dealers accustomed to rapid turnover in wholesale jewellery inventories.

Organisers have not published a detailed exhibitor-by-exhibitor absentee list, and the identities of the roughly 10 absent exhibitors and the composition of the Iranian buying mission were not disclosed in the reporting by Harvey Kong. That gap leaves a contrast between the show's stated scale and the concrete losses described by traders such as Lumex.

Whether the disruption will amount to a transient logistical headache or a measurable dent in regional trade will hinge on exhibitor and buyer follow-through, and on organisers providing comparative participation figures. For now, the fair proceeded under a cloud of grounded flights and paused shipments, forcing merchants to weigh immediate revenue losses against the show’s longer-term role as a hub for cross-border trade.