‘Lies, Damn Lies... and Statistics’ :: Mmegi Online

Last year, the ‘Knot’, the highly rated American wedding magazine asked 12,000 newly wed couples whether they chose a natural or a lab-grown diamond for their engagement ring? This year they published the result… 36% chose the latter.

In context, that’s by weight, not value, and engagement rings make up only 25% of the diamond jewellery market, but even so..., that’s a worryingly big number.

In fact, the natural diamond industry is under threat as never before. The Natural Diamond Council does a fantastic job of promoting the “Diamond Dream” but it’s massively underfunded. Russia is (for obvious reasons) persona non grata, and the Kimberley Process is unsuited and unable to bring in the necessary changes. So yet again the industry falls back on the partnership which has given stability to the industry for the last half century – De Beers and the Government of Botswana... except you may not have noticed; their relationship may be about to go up in smoke.

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