Endiama to keep gem production stable

LUANDA – Angola state-owned diamond firm Endiama expects to produce between seven and nine million carats of diamonds in 2009, compared with 8,9 million in the previous year, its director of planning and investment said on Friday.

Alberto Fancony said the diamond industry had been badly hit by the financial crisis in 2008 and that he expected the sector to suffer until the end of this year. Angola is one of the world’s top five diamond producers.’Angolan diamond prices fell around 75 per cent last year but have recovered recently,’ Fancony told reporters at a company presentation. ‘I think the crisis (in the sector) will last until the end of the year.’Fancony said Endiama – which supervises Angola’s diamond sector – was concerned about the flow of thousands of illegal miners from the Democratic Republic of the Congo that had been caught by authorities searching for diamonds in Angola’s rivers.’This is a phenomenon that worries the whole country. It worries the state and it worries Endiama,’ he said. Angolan police announced last month that it had deported more than 6 000 illegal diamond miners this year from the DRC. Fancony said past estimates placed the number of illegal miners in Angola at around 50 000.’We may have something like 50 000 illegal people working on the mining sites. That was in the past. There was a small operation this year but I do not have figures,’ he said.Although both countries are strong regional allies, Congo has accused Angolan troops of trespassing on its territory through their 2 000 km land border. Angola claims it did so to stop the flow of illegal immigrants.-Nampa-Reuters