With the increased participation from sight-holders, Diamond Trading Company (DTC), a marketing arm of DeBeers, has decided to increase its February sight’s value of rough diamond by nearly 10% at about $110 million. This is for the first time in the past three months that the company has increased its supplies on some buying interest and increased participation. Supply of rough diamonds was estimated at $100 million for December 2008 and $80-100 million for January 2009 sights.
“Roughs inventory level in Mumbai and Surat is comparatively high but majority exporters have shifted their focus to trading from manufacturing level. There are some enquiries for select lots as imports have come down drastically by nearly 72% in January and we are waiting for last month’s figures,” a representative of DTC sight-holder said. Sales during the past three months have been about 83% below those recorded in the three DTC sights from December 2007 through February 2008, with an estimated total of $1.7 billion, according to a Rapaport Tradewire report.
There was a more positive mood at the February sight than there had been in December and January and reported an improvement in sales from those previous two sights, DTC spokesperson said.
The company had rejected some stock from the February sight after it closed on Friday, February 27, to sell to sight-holders this week. The company is offering rejected boxes to sight-holders that need specific items or that need goods that were not in their intention to offer . DTC is gathering feedback from sight-holders to assess the success of the initiative.
She added that the company has not decided to go to the secondary market, as DTC hinted it might in January, but it is keeping all its options open, report said.