Diamond groups to unite

LUANDA – African diamond producers are seeking to bolster their influence by forging their own grouping, seeking to reverse a situation where key decisions are taken abroad, a senior Angolan official said yesterday.

The Association of African Diamond Producing Countries was due to be launched on November 4 in Luanda, Sebastiao Panzo, spokesman for Angolan state diamond company Endiama, told Reuters. “The people deciding on the price of diamonds and making policies on diamonds at the moment are non-producers in Antwerp and Israel,” Panzo said in an interview.”We believe we, in Africa, need our own platform to discuss these issues.Some African nations produce a lot, others less, some have more or less structure.We need to unite our views and integrate them,” he added.Angola is the world’s fifth biggest diamond producer by value and the third largest on the continent after Botswana and South Africa.Since the end of the country’s civil war in 2002, the government has been trying to bolster the industry which experts say has great potential for growth.Panzo said geology specialists from 17 African diamond-producing nations had been in Luanda in August to thrash out the details of the association, which would likely be headquartered in Luanda.They were set to return at the start of November ahead of the group’s official launch.”It is important for Africa to take its own decisions about its own resources,” Panzo said.Angola – sub-Saharan Africa’s second largest oil producer after Nigeria – was currently working on a new set of laws to regulate the mining sector, which Panzo said could be ready by the first quarter of 2008.”Foreign investors often complain that our laws are too complicated, especially compared to those in other countries,” he said.New legislation on the marketing of Angolan diamonds had already been drafted and part of it – which would allow Endiama’s marketing branch Sodiam to sell diamonds to preferential clients rather than operating as the sole distributor of the gems – had already been approved by the council of ministers.Laws introducing a diamond auction, the right for diamond producers to sell a quota of their production directly onto the international market and regulating the sale of diamonds polished in Angola, were awaiting approval.Nampa-Reuters”The people deciding on the price of diamonds and making policies on diamonds at the moment are non-producers in Antwerp and Israel,” Panzo said in an interview.”We believe we, in Africa, need our own platform to discuss these issues.Some African nations produce a lot, others less, some have more or less structure.We need to unite our views and integrate them,” he added.Angola is the world’s fifth biggest diamond producer by value and the third largest on the continent after Botswana and South Africa.Since the end of the country’s civil war in 2002, the government has been trying to bolster the industry which experts say has great potential for growth.Panzo said geology specialists from 17 African diamond-producing nations had been in Luanda in August to thrash out the details of the association, which would likely be headquartered in Luanda.They were set to return at the start of November ahead of the group’s official launch.”It is important for Africa to take its own decisions about its own resources,” Panzo said.Angola – sub-Saharan Africa’s second largest oil producer after Nigeria – was currently working on a new set of laws to regulate the mining sector, which Panzo said could be ready by the first quarter of 2008.”Foreign investors often complain that our laws are too complicated, especially compared to those in other countries,” he said.New legislation on the marketing of Angolan diamonds had already been drafted and part of it – which would allow Endiama’s marketing branch Sodiam to sell diamonds to preferential clients rather than operating as the sole distributor of the gems – had already been approved by the council of ministers.Laws introducing a diamond auction, the right for diamond producers to sell a quota of their production directly onto the international market and regulating the sale of diamonds polished in Angola, were awaiting approval.Nampa-Reuters