GJEPC-ALROSA Agreement May Lead To Direct Russian Rough Sales In India

India’s Gem & Jewellery Export Promotion Council (GJEPC) and state-controlled Russian diamond mining giant ALROSA signed a memorandum of cooperation that among other things, outlines the GJEPC’s intention to try and establish a special tax regime to enable ALROSA to sell rough diamonds directly from the India Diamond Trading Centre (IDTC), a special customs notified zone established in the Bharat Diamond Bourse (BDB).

GJEPC Chairman Praveenshankar Pandya and ALROSA President Sergey Ivanov signed the memorandum on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, as Russian President Vladimir Putin and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi looked on.

ALROSA and the GJEPC have also agreed in the memorandum to cooperate in the generic promotion of diamonds to ensure that the consumer market for the product continues to grow.

The memorandum also stated that ALROSA and the GJEPC would ensure that the synthetic and natural diamond production pipelines were kept separate. They also agreed to share information on cases of undisclosed mixing of synthetics and naturals and agreed to work toward developing legislation that would make the disclosure of synthetics mandatory.

GJEPC Chairman Praveenshankar Pandya commented that the signing of the memorandum was the first step towards ALROSA setting up a rough diamond representative office within the country. “For long, the GJEPC has been encouraging diamond mining companies to sell rough diamonds directly to the Indian  market, and the memorandum may well be the first step to realise this goal,” he said.

Speaking on the other issues touched on in the memorandum, Pandya said, “Moreover, the mixing of synthetic diamonds with natural diamonds and the consequent threat to consumer confidence, is one of the biggest challenges facing the diamond industry worldwide. The GJEPC has taken the lead in dealing with this issue by setting up of the Natural Diamond Monitoring Committee (NDMC), which has been doing stellar work. Other companies and bodies have also come forward to tackle this challenge. Now, if the two most important and largest entities combine their efforts in a focussed manner, this will no doubt have a tremendous impact on the entire diamond industry”.

Pandya went on to say, “Further, the need for generic marketing of diamonds has been felt by the industry for some time now. For many years, the GJEPC has been endeavouring to galvanise the entire world trade to take concerted and cohesive action for diamond promotions. In this area too, the joint efforts of GJEPC and ALROSA will have an extremely beneficial impact at an international level.”

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