The United Arab Emirates-based chair of the Kimberley Process (KP) is consulting with key industry players over potentially devising the first set of global standards for pricing of rough diamonds.
Ahmed Bin Sulayem, the 2016 chair of the KP and executive chairman of the Dubai Multi-Commodities Centre, is in discussions with miners and the World Diamond Council (WDC) as part of a study aimed at determining best practice for valuing rough stones, with plans in place to reach initial findings by the annual KP intersessional meeting in Dubai in May.
“The KP chair’s office can confirm it has indeed started a thinking process of how to reach best-practice principles on valuation,” a spokesperson for Bin Sulayem told Rapaport News.
“It is a long, complex journey in which we hope to take some first concrete steps by intersession,” the spokesperson added. “Outlining a best practice should involve industry exports as well as government valuators. The KP chair is currently reaching out to several players including the mining corporations and the WDC.”
Meanwhile, The National reported that Dubai’s role in the rough trade would be a subject of the study, which comes amid questions over transparency in pricing of rough diamonds globally.
“No country’s diamond market is perfect, and every major diamond center has its own challenges,” The National cited Bin Sulayem as saying. “I’m not going to point fingers at anyone else, though. Through these studied and workshops we’ll look at where the main issues are and how we can resolve them.”
