The diamond hub
MONKAGEDI GAOTLHOBOGWE
Staff Writer
| Friday December 19, 2008 00:00
The diamond hub represents Botswana's ambitious plan to chart its own course in the diamond industry. The key aspects of the diamond hub will eventually see the Botswana government developing a separate diamond marketing process outside the De Beers system.
Not only is the diamond hub about marketing and selling diamonds by aspiring to be a world diamond centre, the diamond hub also aims to attract the best diamond technology companies to Botswana and by this year the Coordinator of the Diamond Hub, was confident they are on the path to realising that dream after successfully luring two of the world's largest diamond technology companies to the country.
Four core activities will form the key features of the diamond centre, namely, a rough and polished trading centre, a cutting and polishing centre, a jewellery manufacturing centre, and a retail and diamond ancillary business.
The first core activity will create a trading facility as a market for diamonds mined by a number small independent companies in Botswana. The facility will also deal in diamonds from other countries. Companies such as Gem Diamonds or Gope Mine, Firestone (BK 11) and Diamonex at Lerala will benefit from the facility that will have a trading floor operating like a stock exchange.
Government intends to partner with international commodity and derivatives operators like MCX Africa to run the facility.
The Diamond Hub has struck a deal with the USA's GIA (Gemmological Institute of America), the world's largest and most respected non-profit institute of research and learning.
Tombale has also disclosed the coming on board of another diamond research company, HRD Antwerp. Israeli diamond companies have also shown a lot of interest in the Botswana Diamond Hub as well as a number of Indian companies which are also known to be wrapping up an investment package worth over P180 million.
Towards the end of last month, the diamond hub, in association with Motiganz and Star Diamonds launched a first ever 'Made in Botswana' diamonds that began selling in the US.
This relationship sees Botswana becoming both the source and manufacturer of diamonds. Tombale says Star Diamonds have teamed up with a partner to polish diamonds locally and embark on jewellery manufacturing for export, although Tombale prefers to describe the initiative as more of a trial because nothing like this has ever been done in Africa.
In an interview, Tombale said the Diamond Hub is working with Motiganz to cut and polish diamonds from Jwaneng. 'The Jwaneng diamonds are high in quality,' Tombale says.
'We want to see them become the Botswana brand, if the process can be pushed to the next level. I was with people who were here in partnership with Motiganz, and they were satisfied with the quality of the Botswana brand. 'We are also watching with a keen eye to see if more, like manufacturing jewellery from here, can be done. That will depend on discussions we are having with Motiganz'.
In collaboration with traditional partners, De Beers Botswana this year opened DTC here, a De Beers marketing arm.
The opening of the DTC sees 16 diamond polishing and cutting companies opening shop in Botswana. The beneficiation has created 3000 new jobs in Botswana.
The country is also expecting to house the international sales and marketing arm of the DTC, known as DTC International, responsible for the aggregation activities.
With the global financial crunch continuing to bite, diamonds sales plummeted to one of their all time lows this month, with De Beers recording just a fifth of what they realised last year around this time of the year.
The poor business has led to De Beers releasing a statement early this month to the effect that they will not be relocating their aggregation activities to Gaborone next year as it was earlier planned.The Diamond hub is sure to feel the blows of the global financial crisis as Debswana also have announced they are closing two mines, which employs 1022 workers in Orapa and Damtshaa.