The first-ever Antwerp Diamond Trade Fair held from February 7 to 9 brought together more than 40 stands of invited companies. Artur Beller, President of the Antwerp Diamond Bourse, told about its results and outlooks as well as commented the trends on the market of rough and polished diamonds in his interview to the Rough&Polished Editor-in-Chief and Editor of the agency’s European Bureau. 

How many jewellers did you manage to bring here in the end? 

About one hundred and fifty. We invited six hundred and one hundred and fifty answered positively. And I hear that people will come the next year and I hope that there will be more. JCPenney, Neiman Marñus  said that their best product was basically jewelry and they backed. So they hope we will continue like that. And of course also with the Far East, China and India – that’s where a lot of sales and business are going to take place. We are positive about WorldExpo in Shanghai. There Belgium can display its beer, chocolate and diamonds. 

Mr. President, do you think that more Russian diamonds should come to Antwerp? 

We need them of course and we maintain very good contacts with ALROSA to be able to get more diamonds to Antwerp. We also need polished diamonds and you have a company called Almazyuvelirexport. I’ve been in Moscow more than 400 times. And we do hope that we’ll have good contacts with ALROSA. And we do hope that we will get much more rough. 

What do you think about the quality of Russian diamonds? 

Very nice, beautiful. The make is very nice and color is very nice and we also make some in my own company. We have a special jewelry line called Tsarina Diamonds. 

Mr. President, on the rough and polished market lately there is actually some sort of price conflict between diamond manufacturers and diamond miners. What is your vision of this situation? 

It’s not so much that mining companies which put the prices. It’s the demand, there is a lot of demand, and people pay high prices to get diamonds. A lot of diamonds today are sold at tenders. So in order to get the goods we have to pay a higher price. And of course if a mining company will see that price is up they charge more for their goods. Certainly, this is business. So if polished is going up so we have to go up much more in order to get to the level where you can buy rough and make a small profit. 

Do you think there is a way out of this situation taking into account that some time ago De Beers was the only company which dictated prices, while now the situation changed and all the diamond miners are moving towards a free market? 

Well, we are very happy because before De Beers had a certain number of customers and that’s it. Today we have ALROSA coming in the market, we have BHP, Rio Tinto, Angola, which means more rough and it’s free and open to the whole market where everybody can try to get it. As you know ALROSA last year sold a lot of goods to Gokhran because the market was bad. We hope now – and these things are going to happen - that Gokhran will give the goods to ALROSA and we are working very strongly so that ALROSA should send most of the goods to Antwerp. We already have about fifteen or twenty customers – I don’t know the exact number – who go every month to ALROSA and buy rough there and the rough is coming here. 

Of course we have to compete. You know there is something which is called the Kimberley Process. We in Antwerp, we really follow the rules from A to Z. But certain centers – I am not going to give you any names – do not follow the rules so strongly. You know that we have a big problem with Zimbabwe. So we don’t let any of those goods from Zimbabwe coming to Antwerp because there is no Kimberley Process, but some other centers don’s look so closely and the goods go to other places. They finally come to Antwerp. But we are not going to let anything from Zimbabwe coming to Antwerp because we are really following the Kimberley Process from A to Z. 

Do you have any prognosis for this year and the next year as far as the polished and rough trade is concerned? 

You know I’m not a prophet, so prognoses are sometime very difficult to do. All depends on international economy. If anything will happen with the banks then we’ll have a difficult time. But we don’t think so. And as we’ve seen business has picked up from last October 2009. It’s very good now in January and February 2010, prices go slightly up, profits become normal and we hope there will continue a stronger demand for diamonds, especially if such countries like China and India will get more and more money supplied to people who will buy more and more diamonds. Hopefully the United States will start again, because as I just said a few big shops like JCPenney had said they had fantastic Christmas and New Year sales of jewels and diamonds. 

Eighty percent of the world’s rough passes through Antwerp. Is it the figure for the last year? 

Yes, it was the figure for the last year, but of course the figure was much lower because ALROSA did not sell any diamonds, De Beers sold much less every month than usually because there was much less demand, polished diamonds were selling difficultly, but now again ALROSA is selling goods to the market and we hope to get more goods from them through our channels.

What could you say about the proportion of diamonds traded here? Do they all come from De Beers? 

No, not any more. It used to be, but not any more today. It’s everything. BHP and Rio Tinto have quotas in Antwerp. We hope that they will stay and sell only in Antwerp, those two companies. De Beers of course today has problems. They sell goods in South Africa, they sell goods in Botswana, they might sell goods in Namibia because their governments say, “We have diamonds, it’s our product and we want to sell it there.” ALROSA - I think that we’ll convince them to sell more and more goods in Antwerp. 

What will happen if the U.S. market will not pick up as expected?

I think that it is going to pick up. It has already started to pick up. And again, the United States went down, but then India and China went up. Today their middle class has money. There is a bourse now in Shanghai also and selling there we try to compensate what we couldn’t sell in the States, but we are sure that the States are picking up slowly and will pick up. 

This event is a closed session by invitation only. Do you plan to make it open?

No, for the next few years we’ll make by invitation. We shall send invitations to five or six or seven hundred jewelry shops to see how many will respond. 

Will you hold this fair every year from now on? 

Since the success is so big among the exhibitors and visitors who came to Antwerp I’m sure that we will do every year. 

Do you have any relations with the diamond bourse in Moscow? 

Yes, of course. I have a very close friend there, Mr. Sergey Oulin, who is Vice President of ALROSA and President of the Diamond Bourse. He is coming next month to Antwerp and we’ll have a meeting here. Every two years there is a World Congress of all the diamond bourses. This year in July it is going to be in Moscow. There will be a big meeting. There are about 27 bourses, so all the bourses of the world will come to Moscow. 

What could you say about the efficiency of bourses activity in Moscow? 

Well, it’s not bad, but they do not have enough members yet. By the way there are two bourses in Moscow. Mr. Alex Popov is the President of the other bourse. I know him very well, he is a good friend of mine and Sergey Oulin whom I know for fifteen years now. Mostly when I’m in Moscow I’m at Almazyuvelirexport where Mr. Rustem Usmanov is the president. They have a very big business in platinum and palladium, but they also have a big diamond department. 

Mr. President, there are more than 40 diamond firms present here. Are they all based in Antwerp? 

They are all based in Antwerp. 

Do you intend to invite companies which are not based in Antwerp to take part in this fair? 

No. Not only they have to be in Antwerp, they have to be members of the Diamond Bourse. We are not going to open it for Israeli people. And if we have Indian people, they have all their offices here. 

Will the Bourse get any profit from this session? 

The Bourse itself? If you want, yes – the reputation of the Bourse in the sense that we have done something and that Antwerp is the example of the most important thing for exhibitors that derive some profit out of it, they meet people who came from India, France, Italy, Germany, Austria, Sweden, Norway, Spain. So they meet al lot of new customers. But this is for sure is not going to be open for foreign companies. 

Have you got any preliminary estimate of the turnover during this fair? 

I can’t tell you for the moment, we have to see. And again, the things that will be important are the contacts. I don’t think that people will sell a lot here.

 At the moment the main point for the whole diamond business is to get polished sales moving. What can be done about it? 

Well, publicity. For ALROSA and De Beers the only publicity is that diamonds are “a girl’s best friend.” 

What can you say about the international initiative to back up polished diamonds? 

Every bourse and every diamond center promotes sales of polished diamonds. We are trying to involve the Belgium government. We are going to visit the governor of Antwerp. So we are trying to promote this. 

ALROSA is so far contemplating its participation in the International Diamond Board. 

It’s ALROSA which basically in Saint Petersburg started it. I don’t know what’s happening for the moment. No comment on that. 

Have you met with Mr. Andreyev, ALROSA’s new President? 

Yes, I met him. I think that he is going to run ALROSA very well and that we have to see and also a lot depends on the Minister of Finance, Mr. Kudrin, who is basically the chief there. 

Vladimir Malakhov and Alex Shishlo, Rough&Polished, from Antwerp