Thousands of sapphires, rubies, diamonds, emeralds, jade and other gems glitter in long glass display cases as merchants haggle with professional buyers - most of them foreigners - and tourists.
Business is good here at the sales center of the Myanmar Gems Museum, despite legislation signed by President Bush last month to ban the import of rubies and jade into America.
Yangon gem sellers dismissed the sanction against their government as a symbolic gesture unlikely to have much effect on their lucrative trade.
"Our buyers are almost all from China, Russia, the Gulf, Thailand, India and the European Union, and we can barely keep up with their demand," said Theta Mar of Mandalar Jewelry, a store in the museum gem shop, where prices range from a few hundred dollars to about $18,000 for the best rubies.
Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, produces up to 90 percent of the world's rubies and is a top international supplier of other gems and jade.
The government-controlled sector, often criticized for harsh working conditions and poor environmental controls, is a major source of revenue for the military.
No recent or reliable official statistics on the gemstone trade are publicly available, but analysts and human rights groups say it likely brings the military regime between $300 million and $400 million a year.
The embargo on gems is the latest U.S. move to apply financial pressure on the junta. Many Western nations have instituted economic and political sanctions against the military government, which seized power in 1988, violently suppressed pro-democracy demonstrations by monks last September and hindered foreign aid after a devastating cyclone in May.
The U.S. bill bans all import of gems from Myanmar.
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