On the final day of the 34th Congress of the World Federation of Diamond Bourses (WFDB) Sergey Oulin, President of the Diamond Chamber of Russia and Vice President of ALROSA, answered the questions filed by Rough&Polished.

Judging by what is going on at this Congress, now the priority task is to put the polished market into motion. How does WFDB intend to do it?

Probably it is the most complicated question, how to do it? Everybody agrees that it should be done, but there are very different views on how to do it. I do not think that easy solutions as for instance increasing funds simply spent for advertising will help to solve the problem since people have been talking about the necessity for diamond-mining companies to increase financing or establish a special fund for advertising (generic diamonds) for a long time, about a year.

Such a fund has not yet been established, but the market went upwards both in prices and in volume. It does not at all to say that it is not necessary to spend considerable means for advertising. It just means that this condition is necessary, but insufficient.

Therefore I cite it as an example proving that really reliable and effective decisions are to a certain extent more sophisticated and by all means have a complex and system character.

This context makes me recollect the Saint Petersburg initiative related to generic diamond advertising. The crisis muffled this problem. How does the land lie now?

Speaking about the Saint Petersburg initiative, it should be noted that unfortunately it was reduced to the narrowly utilitarian project of “generic diamonds.” Actually the initiative was much deeper, and first of all it pursued developing a platform for serious dialogue which would allow not only understanding a problem, but also finding constructive ways to solve this problem.

Besides, such a platform should possess necessary will and ability to influence the global diamond business and promote solutions for those problems which seem to us today urgent and developing events in such a way that will lead to an effective solution.

Thus, establishing such a platform suggests participation of all major players interested in developing the diamond business. Analogies with OPEC seem inappropriate, because OPEC regulates volumes of production coming to the market, while the organization which I mean, or to be more specific it is a platform (it may be something quite different from just another bureaucratic organization, but a platform for dialogue) will be engaged in market development, generating conditions and consolidating resources for market development, and not for regulating volumes of goods coming to the market, as for instance rough diamonds.

All those who possess real influence and have serious reasons to be disturbed by the state of affairs in the market are all visible – these are diamond-mining companies, manufacturers of polished diamonds, jewelry manufacturers and global retail networks selling diamond jewelry. These are certainly banks which appeared facing severe problems as a result of the crisis. And finally these are international public organizations, professional organizations within the world diamond and jewelry business.

And still I should outline one group of participants in particular. These are high-ranking representatives of the countries for which the diamond business plays an important role both from the point of view of national budget and from the point of view of solving social and economic problems. For such countries the crisis which we have hardly weathered had a huge impact.

To put it shortly, creating such a platform for so serious a dialogue could be similar to how the Kimberley Process works. It is a permanently functioning conference.

And in this sense the Kimberley Process seems to me a very good and successful example or maybe even a model since the Kimberley Process has certainly first of all proved its efficiency and influence on the world market development - the signing of the Interlaken Declaration and changes made to national legislations on a voluntary basis may be just some of its worthy instances. Not so many sanctions even of the United Nations possess such power of influence as a voluntary decision taken by the Kimberley Process.

And finally, within the limits of the Kimberley Process there is already a coherent dialogue going on not only between countries on the problem of conflict diamonds, but between business and states. Therefore it seems to me that good preconditions are already created, and it is necessary to use now this potential of development and to make it very special.

The task which we should set before ourselves is to maintain stability in the world market, on the one hand, and on the other hand – to provide for its development.

Does the permanently functioning conference on diamond business problems fit into the framework of what you said? And how will it work, from your point of view?

This is just what I am speaking about. This is something which was laid in the conceptual basis of the Saint Petersburg forum, and this is something to which it is necessary to return because these are measures which are particularly and directly aimed at developing business.

Vladimir Malakhov, Rough&Polished, Moscow