(IDEX Online) - Botswana is increasing its value-added tax to boost revenue after a disastrous year for diamonds and other minerals.The country relies on mining for 80 per cent of its foreign earnings and has been badly hit by the global pandemic.Finance minister Thapelo Matsheka announced a VAT increase from 12 per cent to 14 per cent when he presented his annual budget on Monday, the first time...Read More
(IDEX Online) - US jeweler Helzberg is expanding its own-brand offering, with a new range of a dozen lab-grown diamond engagement rings.It's been selling other brands of bridal and other lab-grown jewelry since 2017.But it has now partnered with Jenny Packham, a favorite designer of the British Royal Family, who has created a dozen platinum rings with colorless lab-grown diamonds.Helzberg say...Read More
RAPAPORT... The All India Gem and Jewellery Domestic Council (GJC) has named Ashish Pethe as its new chairman as part of a shake-up of its leadership team.The council, which represents India's domestic jewelry industry, elected nine new board members, who in turn picked Pethe as chairman, he told Rapaport News this week. His term began on January 1 and will last two years. He succeeds Anantha...Read More
RAPAPORT... Kendra Scott has left her position as CEO of her namesake jewelry brand after nearly two decades, and will instead focus on the design and consumer elements of the business.Scott will continue as executive chairwoman, majority owner, and leader of design, customer experience and philanthropy, the company said Monday. Tom Nolan, president of the company, will succeed her as head of the...Read More
RAPAPORT... A sharp rise in silver prices over the past week has shocked the jewelry industry and raised concerns that consumers will steer clear of the precious metal until the volatility ends.Prices have jumped around 9% since last Wednesday, according to Silverprice.org.The hike is thought to be a result of posts on the Reddit social-media platform encouraging amateur traders to bet on ass...Read More
RAPAPORT PRESS RELEASE, February 2, 2021, Las Vegas... The diamond trade began the year with optimism following a relatively successful holiday season. Polished-diamond suppliers anticipated steady inventory replacement in the first quarter. December and January therefore saw strong rough buying. The subsequent increase in polished inventory levels led prices to soften in key categories.The RapNet...Read More
Year-on-year diamond prices for January 2021 bounced 1.5 per cent, breaking through the x-axis for the first time since April 2019. They'd been hovering just below zero since October 2020 and last month came exactly in line with prices for the previous year. They were badly hit by the pandemic in March and April, when they were 4.8 per cent down, but have rising in fits and starts ever since....Read More
RAPAPORT... Gem Diamonds emerged from 2020 as one of the few miners to record revenue growth, benefiting from a sharp recovery in prices and sales during the second half.Sales rose 4% to $189.2 million for the year, the company reported Tuesday in a trading update. The average price jumped 17% to $1,908 per carat, outweighing an 11% decline in sales volume to 99,172 carats.Gem Diamonds had fe...Read More
RAPAPORT... The decline in Hong Kong retail sales deepened in December as the resurgence of Covid-19 cases and the continued ban on tourism weighed on the market.Retail sales of jewelry, watches, clocks and valuable gifts plummeted 41% to HKD 3.09 billion ($399 million) for the month, according to data Hong Kong's Census and Statistics Department released Tuesday. Sales across all retail categorie...Read More
RAPAPORT... Firestone Diamonds will keep its Liqhobong mine closed as it works with its bondholders to restructure its debt and continues to test market prices for its rough.The miner has reached an agreement with Absa, one of its lenders, to allow it to defer repayment of its debt until September 2021, Firestone said Tuesday. The company is still in discussions with other bondholders about a long...Read More
(IDEX Online) - An American rapper is to have a huge natural pink diamond, valued at $24m, embedded in his forehead.Lil Uzi Vert, 26, told fans he'd been paying for the gem - which he describes as "10 almost 11 carats" since 2017 and it was now time to have it implanted. It cost more than his Bugatti, other cars and house, he said.Vert - real name Symere Bysil Woods, from Philadelphia - expla...Read More
RAPAPORT... The Indian government has reduced import duties for key precious metals and clarified that rough-diamond purchases are exempt from a new e-commerce tax, drawing praise from jewelry-trade leaders.Customs duties on gold and silver will decrease to 7.5% from the previous rate of 12.5%, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced Monday in the country's annual budget. The government...Read More
(IDEX Online) - There was a mixed bag of price changes in January, with more activity among rounds than fancies. Across all cuts and sizes shown below price increases and decreases were more or less even, and in many size categories there were virtually no changes. HIGHLIGHTED CHANGESROUNDS2.00-2.99 ct. E / VVS1-VS1 +3%, F-G / VS1 +3%3.00-3.99 ct. H-M / VS2 +2.5-3.5%...Read More
RAPAPORT... Grading laboratories are widely viewed as the guardians of trust in the diamond industry, and have a long history of using technology to authenticate the product. But the trade is seeing some disruption as the larger labs adopt artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to enhance their grading capabilities. In the third installment of Rapaport's podcast series, "Technology...Read More
RAPAPORT... The Natural Diamond Council (NDC) has launched a partnership program for jewelry retailers, enabling them to use the category-marketing organization's advertising materials on a local level."As we continue working under a new context where the need for digital content continues to rise, it has become apparent there is an opportunity to collaborate and share resources with diamond-...Read More
(IDEX Online) - A rough tender in Dubai raised almost $60m as TAGS reported "extraordinarily strong demand".It says all 87,000 carats on offer were sold during the week-long event at at the Dubai Diamond Exchange."We achieved by far the highest prices we have seen since before the COVID-19 crisis," said a spokesman for Trans Atlantic Gem Sales DMCC (TAGS).Around 150 companies, mostly from India, t...Read More
RAPAPORT... Gold-jewelry demand plummeted in 2020 due to the pandemic and high prices, according to the World Gold Council (WGC).The global total dropped 34% to 1,412 tonnes for the year, the lowest since the organization began collating annual data in 1995, it reported Thursday.Demand plunged in the first half and fell less heavily in the third quarter, with an economic recovery in key marke...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Surat's long-awaited bourse - a vast $355m building with 4,400 offices - is finally due to open in September. The Surat Diamond Bourse (SDB) says it will become the world's biggest diamond trading hub, with an estimated annual turnover in excess of $25bn. It was supposed to open in January 2020, according to its own website.Surat has long been the capital...Read More
RAPAPORT... The Diamond Council of America (DCA) has elected Chuck Kuba to a two-year term as chairman of its board of directors.Kuba, the owner of Iowa Diamond in Des Moines, Iowa, is also on the board of directors of Jewelers of America (JA), and was previously the president of the Iowa Jewelers Association, the DCA said last week.David Bonaparte, CEO of JA, and Bill Luth, executive vice preside...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Debswana, which controls most of Botswana's diamond production, saw rough exports down 30 per cent in 2020 as a result of the global pandemic.Foreign sales were down from $3.05bn in 2019 to $2.02bn in 2020, according to the Bank of Botswana.The country is the world's second largest producer of diamonds after Russia, and relies on them for 30 per cent of its revenue nation...Read More