Bumper Stone Volumes Expected At August Sight

MBONGENI MGUNI
Staff Writer | Monday August 23, 2010 00:00

 

Diamond industry insiders say DTCB's July and August sights are traditionally high volume as sightholders beef up stocks ahead of the festive season, the diamond retail industry's peak period.

The cutting and polishing firms take about four months manufacturing the rough stones before they reach the diamond retail lines in time for the Christmas and New Year frenzied buying period.

On Thursday, DTCB corporate communications and public affairs manager, Kago Mmopi, confirmed that the August sight would be held this week, saying further information would become available next week.

However, all expectations are that the 16 local diamond cutting and polishing firms who represent the DTCB's sightholders will be eager to stock up in preparation for the festive season and the Thanksgiving holiday in the US, which will fall on November 25 this year. Sightholders will also be eyeing the Chinese New Year that begins on February 3, 2011.

Although the US continues to be the major market for polished diamonds, China and India are fast opening up, driven by the emergence of a robust middle class which is powered by their blossoming economies.

Indicative of this, De Beers' polished diamonds retail sector witnessed strong growth in the first half of 2010, with 'double digit' increases in consumer demand from China and India, supported by a 'modest improvement' in demand from the United States.

De Beers' Forevermark diamond brand has also expanded rapidly across Asia with 289 doors in China, Hong Kong and Japan.

Last week, De Beers Botswana Resident Director and CEO, Neo Moroka, stressed the growing importance of the Asian markets.

'We are witnessing shifting patterns in consumer demand,' Moroka said at a stakeholders' engagement on Thursday.

'Before, the US was the major market for diamonds, but by 2016, we see China and India as the major consumers and this being largely by the development and growth of the middle class in these two countries.

'By 2016, China's consumption will be 16 percent and India's between 13 and 16 percent of the total market. We expect a slight drop in the US demand.'

Moroka said the shifting consumer patterns were also demographic as the traditional consumers of diamonds in the US were becoming older while the new buyers in the Asian markets were comparatively young. This, he said, required innovative designs and marketing from De Beers.

'In China and India, the young people moving to the middle class are demanding a certain class of diamonds,' he said. 'We have to start marketing to them as well.'

DTCB's sightholders, who have their finger on the pulse of consumer and market trends by nature, will participate in this week's sight with such forecasts in mind.

Annually, DTCB holds 10 sights consisting of local and internationally sourced and aggregated rough stones.