Press Release: Avi Paz, president of the World Federation of Diamond Bourses (WFDB), said that the uncompromising positions taken by some Kimberley Process (KP) members and the ensuing lack of agreement regarding the future of rough diamond exports from the Marange region in Zimbabwe would be detrimental, in particular, to the downstream diamond supply pipeline. Following the breakdown of agreement at the Kimberley Process intersessional meeting in Kinshasa, Paz said the impasse had the potential to hit the well-being of the entire, global diamond industry.
“When there are quarrels in a household, such as the KP, one expects the members of that household to sit down together and resolve their differences through negotiations,” Paz said. “However, by walking out of the house, and by upending the discussions, some members clearly do not realize the enormous negative and, I fear, disastrous impact their conduct has and will have on the entire diamond supply pipeline,” Paz stated.
The WFDB president pointed out that the effect would be felt most immediately at the lower end of the diamond supply pipeline, but would soon have an overall negative impact on the upper end of the diamond industry as well.
“Millions of people, both in Zimbabwe, as well as in the major diamond manufacturing centers, such as India, who do not have any other means of income, are affected directly and soon enough the industry at large will fall victim to the lack of resolve of the KP. It is very sad that through the politicization of the KP talks, some of the KP members have lost sight of what the original objectives of the KP are. At the same time, they are using the unique structure of the KP, with its consensual decision making process, to hold up the process and serve secondary goals that are foreign to the KP,” Paz noted.
“The WFDB deplores the KP members’ failure to resolve the central issue of rough diamond exports from Zimbabwe and demands all parties return to the table without delay. The clock is ticking and it shows it’s five minutes to midnight. Disaster is awaiting around the corner for the international diamond trade,” Paz concluded
Paz reiterated, once again, that in spite of the recent developments and the KP’s lack of resolve, all members of the WFDB are to continue to follow the KP’s and the WFDB’s directives on rough diamond trading.
About the WFDB:
The object of the World Federation of Diamond Bourses is to protect the interests of affiliated bourses and their individual members, and to further the amicable settlement or arbitration of differences and disputes between the individual members of the affiliated bourses and between the affiliated bourses. In furtherance of this object, it is the aim of the world federation to participate in the promotion of world trade and to encourage the establishment of bourses, with the view of eventual affiliation of all centres where diamonds are actively traded.
Members of the bourses affiliated to the World Federation of Diamond Bourses pledge themselves to uphold the traditions, principles of mutual trust, consideration and friendship which prevail among the members of the bourses world-wide. They pledge themselves to abide by and hand down these principles and to ensure that they will forever serve as a basis in business relations between members of the affiliated bourses world-wide.
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