De Beers will offer grading of non-Forevermark diamonds from its U.K. laboratory for the first time from March 1 as the company expands a service currently existing in Antwerp and Surat.
The miner’s research company, International Institute of Diamond Grading & Research (IIDGR), will open up the general grading service to the entire trade including retailers and those outside the U.K., a spokesperson said in an email to Rapaport News January 8.
The service has been running in Belgium since 2012 and in India since mid-2015. IIDGR will open new labs if the demand makes it sensible.
“Our primary focus is on the Far East, India and Europe, but demand is growing rapidly and we are finding many other requests from around the world,” the spokesperson added.
The new service encompasses IIDGR’s Diamond Grading Reports and the more concise Diamond Identification Report, which will both be available from the U.K. lab. The company said 95 percent of respondents to a U.K. survey of attitudes toward certification would like to receive an independent grading report when buying a diamond but only 42 percent actually received one.
