ODC sales drop 60% as diamond downturn deepens :: Mmegi Online

State-owned diamond trader, Okavango Diamond Company (ODC), saw its revenues in the first six months of the year drop by nearly 60% compared to the same period last year, as the rough diamond industry experiences a sharp downturn last seen four years ago.

The figures come as India – which cuts and polishes at least 80% of the world’s rough diamonds – announced on Wednesday that it is banning imports of the stones for two months in order to “better manage the balance between supply and demand”.

This week’s revelations add onto an increasingly bleak picture for rough diamonds this year, where sales, prices and revenues are sharply down, in certain cases by double-digit percentages. The crisis has largely been caused by high inventory levels of polished diamonds in the midstream, that section of the diamond pipeline occupied by cutters and polishers, who buy from mines and sell to jewellers.

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