RAPAPORT. The largest rough-trading centers face a busy January as adaptations have enabled them to continue holding sales events during the pandemic.
Antwerp and Dubai will host 14 rough tenders between them this month, after 2020 proved relatively strong despite the coronavirus outbreak. Technology has allowed sellers to offer goods remotely. At the same time, rough prices at tenders were lower than those at large miners’ contract sales for much of last year, attracting buyers that were looking to meet specific demand.
“Antwerp’s diamond office [the customs center] remained operational [during Covid-19], and there was constant consultation with shipping companies and airlines to ensure goods could continue to be shipped,” a spokesperson for the Antwerp World Diamond Centre (AWDC) said Monday. “We have an unrivalled critical mass of buyers and sellers that enable true market value for rough productions.”
Pandora has warned it is uncertain how the escalation in Covid-19 cases will impact its 2021 sales, as more stores close. Approximately 25% of the Danish jeweler’s locations are currently on lockdown, as opposed to the 10% of brick-and-mortar shops that were closed at the end of the fourth.
Gem Diamonds received a New Year’s surprise, retrieving a 146.9-carat rough diamond from its Letšeng mine in Lesotho.The miner found the high-quality, type II diamond on January 7, it said last week. The stone is the first 100-carat-plus diamond the company has found this year. The discovery.
What a difference a year makes. The modus operandi of the diamond and jewelry trade was vastly different at the end of 2020 than at the start. That’s a good thing, as the changes had been brewing for some time but had lacked momentum pre-coronavirus. Such developments as the digitization of.
RAPAPORT. The UK’s departure from the European Union has altered the way British diamond businesses trade with important centers such as Antwerp, as well as with markets around the world. The impact stretches from new Kimberley Process procedures to updated rules on value-added tax.