On 6 September 2026, at the CIBJO Centenary Congress in Vicenza, Italy, the Fei Cui Working Group of the World Jewellery Confederation presented the updated Jade Guide — the first international trade document to systematically integrate Eastern and Western jade nomenclature. This page digests the full official text; the Guide itself — 104 pages, published on cibjo.org in September 2026 — is hosted here unaltered, with the complete PDF in Chapter VI.
CIBJO — the World Jewellery Confederation, founded in 1926 — is the jewellery industry's paramount international body: its Blue Books set the globally accepted nomenclature and disclosure standards for diamonds, coloured stones, pearls, coral and precious metals, and it holds special consultative status with the UN ECOSOC. Its Centenary Congress convened in Vicenza, Italy, on 4–7 September 2026; at the 6 September session chaired by Ken Wong, Managing Director of Chow Tai Fook Jewellery Group, Sector A president Kenneth Scarratt — the Guide's principal architect — presented the updated Jade Guide, joined by Coloured Stone Commission president Charles Abouchar, Su Jun of China's NGTC standardisation department, and jade scholar Professor Edward Liu.
| Date | Milestone |
|---|---|
| 2023 | Jaipur Congress: the Fei Cui Working Group forms, drafting an international standard built upon Hong Kong's Standard Methods for Testing Fei Cui and launching the global "jades" nomenclature project |
| 2024 – 2025 | Two expert working groups under the Coloured Stone Commission draft and debate definitions, trade names and treatment terms — "Where did we get most arguments? Definition," in Scarratt's words |
| 2026 · 09 · 06 | The updated Jade Guide (104 pp.) is presented at the Vicenza Centenary Congress; the full text follows on cibjo.org and is mirrored here as the official PDF |
The Guide's central achievement is enthroning the pinyin term Fei Cui internationally, with a mineralogical definition:
"Fei Cui is a granular to fibrous polycrystalline aggregate, composed solely or principally of the minerals jadeite, omphacite and kosmochlor, or any combination of these minerals."CIBJO FEI CUI WORKING GROUP
The sodium-aluminium pyroxene long treated in Western literature as the whole of "jadeite jade" — now correctly one member of the Fei Cui trio.
Dominant in mo cui ("black jade") among others — material that the old scheme could not comfortably name, a chronic source of lab disputes now resolved.
The chromium pyroxene behind intense "dry green" material. Any blend of the three is Fei Cui — formally aligning with Hong Kong's standard and mainland lab practice.
Per CIBJO's official releases, the Guide is built — in Scarratt's phrase — for "a well-balanced global understanding of the jades and the underpinning culture", and provides:
| Component | What it does |
|---|---|
| Relationship chart | An integrated chart linking traditional Chinese terms to their Western counterparts — nephrite and Fei Cui standing together under the umbrella of "the jades", the mineral jadeite and the rock jadeitite each in its place |
| Trade-name appendices | A systematic register of Chinese trade names for Fei Cui — texture, water and colour terms — tabulated in simplified Chinese, pinyin, IPA and English, giving "glass grade" and "imperial green" their first standardised international voice |
| Treatments & disclosure | Harmonised treatment terminology and disclosure rules — the working group's most contested ground — joining the traditional Type A/B/C scheme to the Blue Book disclosure framework |
| Cultural context | A substantive account of jade's cultural depth in the East, correcting the West's long-standing blur of fact and culture |
Selected trade names, digested from Appendix A. The Guide's Appendix A registers Chinese trade names for fei cui in four columns — simplified Chinese, pinyin, IPA and English rendering. Twelve working terms are digested below with pinyin in standard spelling; entries already in our glossary carry a link, and the complete register lives in the official PDF.
| TRADE NAME | PINYIN | GUIDE RENDERING | IPA | GLOSSARY |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 玻璃种 | bō li zhǒng | Glassy Zhong | /ˈbɔː liː dʒʊŋ/ | ENTRY |
| 冰种 | bīng zhǒng | Icy Zhong | /bɪŋ dʒʊŋ/ | ENTRY |
| 糯种 | nuò zhǒng | Sticky-Rice Zhong | /nwɔː dʒʊŋ/ | ENTRY |
| 豆种 | dòu zhǒng | Pea Zhong | /doʊ dʒʊŋ/ | ENTRY |
| 帝王绿 | dì wáng lǜ | Imperial Green | /diː wɑːŋ luː/ | ENTRY |
| 墨翠 | mò cuì | Inky-Black | /mɔː tsweɪ/ | ENTRY |
| 干青 | gān qīng | Opaque Green | /gæn tʃɪŋ/ | ENTRY |
| 飘花 | piāo huā | Floating Flowers | /pjaʊ hwɑː/ | ENTRY |
| 紫罗兰 | zǐ luó lán | Lavender | /zɪ lwɔː læn/ | ENTRY |
| 春带彩 | chūn dài cǎi | Lavender-Green | /tʃʊn daɪ tsaɪ/ | ENTRY |
| 福禄寿 | fú lù shòu | Fu Lu Shou | /fuː luː ʃoʊ/ | ENTRY |
| 翡 | fěi | Fei | /feɪ/ | ENTRY |
Jade ranks second only to diamond in global gemstone turnover, yet its naming has long been split — Western labs writing "jadeite jade", Hong Kong enshrining the three-mineral Fei Cui definition in law since 2016, the mainland naming per GB/T 16552. The Guide unites them; as Professor Edward Liu told the Congress, "regional harmonisation is no longer optional: it is the prerequisite for the sustainable growth of the Fei Cui trade." NGTC's deep involvement docks China's national standards with CIBJO's framework, and laboratories such as Mason-Kay already print Fei Cui on their reports. For the consumer, a Hong Kong certificate, a mainland certificate and a Western certificate will at last speak one language.
The full Guide (104 pp.) is now published on cibjo.org as Jade Guide - A taxonomy for Fei Cui (翡翠), Jade, Jadeite, Jadeitite, Nephrite, and Yu (玉). We host the official PDF unaltered — download the complete Guide below; copyright remains CIBJO's, and the original is free on the official guidelines page.
FULL OFFICIAL PDF (MIRROR · 4.5 MB) ↓
CIBJO GUIDELINES PAGE ↗
Alongside the Guide, the CIBJO Gemstone Blue Book remains the trade's nomenclature and disclosure standard — a comprehensive revision is slated for the 2027 Congress — free to download.
GEMSTONE BOOK (PDF) ↗
Every fact on this page derives from CIBJO's own releases; the Guide's text is CIBJO's copyright, and this page is a digest — the official publication governs.
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