Last update - 00:00 12/02/2008
Namibia invites Israeli companies to help polish its diamonds
By The Associated Press
Namibia's commissioner of diamonds said Tuesday that while his country was committed to getting more of its rough gems cut and polished locally, it was hoping to do that in partnership with major processing centers, like Tel Aviv, Antwerp and Mumbai.
Speaking at an international conference on rough diamonds in Tel Aviv,
commissioner Kennedy Hamutenya said developing Namibia's capability to turn rough diamonds to finished stones did not mean shutting out foreign expertise.
"We've invited investors from Israel, from Antwerp [Belgium], from India to come and do business in Namibia," he said. "We actually expect investors ... to import skills to our work force. We want a commitment to really transfer skills to Namibia."
Africa accounts for about 60 percent of the world's rough diamond mining. In November 2006, 12 African states, including Namibia, formed the African Diamond Producing Countries Association to press for producer countries to carry out more of the value-enhancing process themselves.
Hamutenya said diamond sales make up 50 percent of his country's exports.
"Diamonds are a strategic commodity for us, just like oil is for Saudi Arabia," he said.
Israel does not produce diamonds itself but is a leading polishing and trading center.
The Israel Diamond Institute, host to the Tel Aviv conference, claims to have the world's largest diamond trading floor and says Israel exported polished diamonds worth over $7 billion in 2007.
Liberian Mines Minister Eugene Shannon told the conference that following the end of UN sanctions against his country, it last year shipped its first package of export-certified diamonds, sending them to Israel.
Certification is carried out under a multinational agreement known as the
Kimberly Process, whose members undertake to trade only fully documented
diamonds.
The United Nations imposed sanctions on the Liberian diamond trade in 2001 after then-President Charles Taylor was accused of using blood diamonds to fuel a civil war in neighboring Sierra Leone.
Taylor, who went into exile in August 2003, faces war crimes charges stemming from his alleged backing of Sierra Leone's rebels, who tortured victims by chopping off their arms, legs, ears and lips.
Samuel Sam-Sumama, vice president of Sierra Leone, told delegates Tuesday that since the end of the fighting and his country's signing up to the Kimberly process, it has been trying to restore its reputation.
"All diamonds exported out of Sierra Leone are now conflict-free," he said. "We shall continue to work and ensure that the Kimberly Process is properly implemented in Sierra Leone."
Related articles: