Angola is losing $1-million a day due to a flourishing illicit trade in diamonds, Mining Minister Manuel Africano said on Tuesday, as new sales plans were announced in Belgium.
”We are losing approximately one million dollars a day due to the ‘garimpo’ [illegal traders],” Africano said on Angolan radio.
In Belgium, the state Company for the Commercialisation of Angolan Diamonds (SODIAM) said it would set up a commercial office in Antwerp, and expected to sell hundreds of millions of dollars worth of stones per year.
The SODIAM announcement came on the final day of an Antwerp conference aimed at restoring lustre to the diamond industry, which has seen its consumer appeal slide following publicity about conflict diamonds that finance wars.
More than 300 000 foreigners have been deported from Angola as part of a crackdown on diamond traffickers, police announced in September.
However, the diamond-rich southwest African country plans to more than double its annual output to 15 000 carats from the current level of 6 000 carats.
A former Portuguese colony, Angola is one of Africa’s top oil and diamond producers.
The Antwerp High Diamond Council said it expected the SODIAM office could sell between $200 to 300-hundred million of uncut diamonds per year.
SODIAM declined to disclose specific sales target figures, saying only it expected sales to reach several hundreds of millions of dollars.
The Antwerp office would be the second opened by SODIAM since it was set up by the Angolan government in 2003 to certify the origin of diamonds and be the sole window through which the stones can be exported.
SODIAM opened its first office in Tel Aviv in July, and also plans to open offices in New York and Dubai, according to the Angola Press news agency.
Antwerp, Belgium’s second city, sees about 80% of the world’s uncut diamonds pass through its workshops and dealing rooms annually, and more than 50% of the global supply of cut diamonds. – Sapa-AFP