Jwaneng to anchor De Beers' recovery

De Beers CEO Philippe Mellier has told Mmegi Business that on the back of tough economic conditions, demand for smaller and cheaper stones was higher in 2012 and the company was 'cautiously optimistic' of a recovery this year.

"We observed that customers went down on quality in 2012 and in the end, there was actually a shortage of smaller and sometimes lower quality stones. This is why we had to ramp up production in the second half of the year at Jwaneng mine to cater for the customer's specific needs. We see this trend continuing this year with moderate growth in production at Jwaneng," he said.