On Monday the managing director of the De Beers Group, Gareth Penny, appealed to diamond traders worldwide to support De Beers in its backing of African attempts to retain rough diamonds for polishing within the continent. Citing the creation of jobs and stability for African democracies, Penny said “We don’t embrace this out of some misguided enthusiasm or altruism, we embrace it because it makes good business sense and because it’s the right thing to do.” Penny went on to invoke the global view on conflict diamonds, stating people no longer buy them and that mining companies wont invest money to extract from conflict areas, but that the industry needed a stable group of companies for maximizing supply since “producing and selling diamonds in or from a country of chaos or worse, conflict, is simply not an option.” (Clearly global view has changed De Beers policy on this matter, since it was not very long ago that the cartel had no problem at all selling diamonds from war torn African nations.)
The truth of the matter is that the diamond cutting industry in African nations is almost non existent by comparison to Belgium, Israel and the United States. Antwerp became exceedingly wealthy from Belgium’s rule of the Congo and the CEO of Antwerp World Diamond Centre, Freddy Hanard, has stated it does not view the African industry as a threat. De Beers called upon Antwerp, Tel Aviv and New York to fund this pet project, and to train African polishers. Penny from De Beers has said the company is currently spending more than $100 Million per year in the search for new mines, including areas in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola.
Diamond Polisher (Photo: Canadian Arctic Diamond)
