DTC Botswana to conduct first sale on Monday

WANETSHA MOSINYI
Staff Writer | Friday April 25, 2008 00:00

 

The sale will be exclusive to DCT Botswana clients, the 16 licensed sightholders made up of some of the world's leading diamond cutters and polishers registered in Botswana last year for the express purpose of creating a sustainable diamond manufacturing industry.

DTC Botswana's Public Affairs and Corporate Communications Manager Kago Mmopi says the sale will start on Monday and end on Wednesday. It will resume on Monday May 5 after Labour Day holidays. Mmopi says the precise value of the aggregated diamonds to be sold next week will be established after the sale.

The diamonds are sourced from DTC's aggregated mix, which is a blend of diamonds from various producer countries including Russia, De Beers-owned mines in Canada and South Africa, as well as from joint venture partnerships in Botswana, Namibia and Tanzania. The stones will be sold from the new state-of-the-art building officially opened by recently retired president Festus Mogae last month. DTC Botswana says it expects ten sales sights to be held on an annual basis.

'The journey to DTC Botswana's first sale began on 14 November last year with the announcement of the DTC Botswana client list and the formalisation of the supply arrangements for the 16 Botswana-based diamond manufacturing operations with the passion, capacity, skill and experience needed to build a sustainable local manufacturing industry,' says Toby Frears, DTC Botswana's Head of Sales and Marketing. Job creation, skills transfer and commitment to manufacture the diamonds locally were key criteria for receiving supply.

Over the course of the first sales week, clients will visit DTC Botswana offices to view their goods in order to verify that their requirements have been met. Overseeing the sales process will be Frears and the two DTC Botswana Key Account Managers, Boitumelo Nyanga and Mbuya Ntabe, who were trained by DTC in London as part of the skills transfer programme. 

DTC Botswana's Managing Director Brian McDonald says DTC Botswana will supply $375 million worth of aggregated rough diamonds to the 16 Botswana sightholders this year and that by the end of the decade, an estimated US$550 million worth of aggregated rough diamonds will be supplied in Botswana per annum. The establishment of these companies has already created over 2 000 jobs. From 2009, DTC Botswana will also be responsible for aggregating rough diamonds from producer countries around the world in Botswana, which will result in more employment creation, says a statement from the company. By facilitating the establishment of a sustainable cutting and polishing industry in Botswana, the Government of Botswana and De Beers are hoping to pave the way for additional downstream activities in the future.

It is also hoped that local jewellery manufacturers will make full use of this opportunity as the industry develops. DTC Botswana recently launched the Shining Lights Awards Diamond Design Competition whose aim is to develop skills and increase career prospects in the area of jewellery manufacturing.

It is also hoped that the expansion of diamond activities by DTC Botswana will give rise to growth of secondary business sectors such as banking, security, and IT. This should contribute to the cultivation of a more advanced diamond industry and provide further opportunities for Botswana's economy to grow.

DTC is the rough diamond distribution arm of the De Beers family of companies and is the world's largest supplier of rough diamonds, handling around 40 percent of the world's supply by value.