De Beers suspends applications for sight contracts
De Beers has paused the application process for its new sightholder contract due to the impact of COVID-19 on its clients’ business operations.
The R&M “Lettre”
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Extraordinary times require courage
The diamond industry, from mine to retail, is facing new challenges that are rocking it to its core. Retail stores around the world are closed and that reverberated up the diamond pipeline, bringing wholesaling activity, jewelry manufacturing, diamond polishing, and diamond mining to a complete standstill.
Don’t ban rough buying, De Beers urges
De Beers CEO Bruce Cleaver has called on the trade to allow rough purchases, assuring manufacturers the company won’t require them to buy in the weak market.
Rough market faces its toughest year yet
As the diamond market considers its options during the industry-wide lockdown, manufacturers in India are planning a freeze on rough imports. The move has precedent. Back in 2008, as financial markets collapsed, India imposed a one-month moratorium on rough buying. Ultimately, it helped the local trade realign inventory and gain market share while other manufacturing […]
Remembering Didier Giard
Press release – Our industry has lost, far too soon, one of its most treasured gems. Didier Giard was an individual who managed to exemplify the very best of what we in the gem and jewelry community seek to find within ourselves
Podcast: How the pandemic is changing De Beers
Interview with Stephen Lussier and David Prager. The diamond industry will need to tweak its messaging to emphasize the values its product and brands represent, De Beers executives stressed in the Rapaport Diamond Podcast.
De Beers makes dramatic cut to production plan
De Beers has reduced its full-year production guidance by 7 million carats, putting the miner on course for its lowest output since 2009.
India trade urged to freeze rough imports
India’s leading diamond-trade organizations have called on members to stop importing rough for at least a month to prevent an oversupply and ensure banks maintain their credit to the sector.
India’s rough choice: an import moratorium?
Stuart Brown, the ex-joint managing director of De Beers, and current CEO of Canadian miner Mountain Province Diamonds, made an amazing statement in a Financial Times article, stating the very obvious: “We need India to open up. Until the manufacturing opens up there, there will be no demand for rough diamonds.”
An opportunity to strengthen connections
A rough diamond changes hands at least five times before it reaches the cutting wheel, an industry veteran explained to my amazement when I first started writing about the market. A polished stone is traded even more often before being set into a piece of jewelry, he continued.
COVID-19 restrictions temporarily halt fancy color diamond trade
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, for the first time since its inception in 2015, the Fancy Color Research Foundation (FCRF) will not publish the Fancy Color Diamond Index (FCDI) for Q1 2020.
WFDB Head Ernie Blom steps down temporarily
The World Federation of Diamond Bourses (WFDB) has named Yoram Dvash as acting president following Ernie Blom’s decision to stand down temporarily.
