Indian diamond imports rise 55 percent.

The prominent Russian diamond-mining company Alrosa has released a rough diamond price forecast for the following 8 years to 2018. They expect that rough diamond production will go back to previous 2008 levels (165 m carats) by 2015 at the earliest. Following this, due to a more restricted supply of new projects and mining discoveries, the level will remain steady at approximately 165–167m carats per year.

The report considered each of the central diamond jewellery markets in the world, like the US, Europe, Asia-Pacific, UAE and Japan; demand for these will expectedly expand by 33 percent over the forthcoming 8 years.

Provisional calculations were also published by the Gems and Jewellery Export Promotion Council (GJEPC). These showed that imports of rough diamonds for May this year have shown a growth of 55.42 percent , levelling at US$ 978.05 million (£644.882 million) (rupees 4,479.46 crores). In May of 2009 imports stood at US$ 630.02 million (£415.448 million) (rupees 3,057.48 crores) which indicates a significant 71.5 percent increase in volume and 55.2 percent increase in the value of imports when compared with this year’s figures.

In respect of the total annual worldwide $14 billion (£9.23 million) rough diamond market, India imports about 130 million carats of rough diamonds per year, amounting to $8 billion (£5.27 billion) each year and the country now supplies approximately 70 percent of all diamonds worldwide.

GJEPC's prediction highlighted how India's rough diamond imports rested at $9.03 billion (£5.96 billion) in 2009-2010, which is a rise of $7.91 billion (£5.22 billion) from a year prior. In 2009, the country’s diamond import levels rose from 20 percent in 2008 to 25 percent. It was reviewed that this was due to competitiveness over cost and middle or small-range jewellery. However, in 2009, India's net diamond account saw improvements of 94 percent, reaching a negative of $83.6 million (£55.2 million).

Source : 77Diamonds