The recently ended annual Botswana Resource Sector Conference, which was convened in the capital, Gaborone, saw several speakers making presentations on diamond mining and other mining sectors. Among the speakers was James Allan, the director of a corporate finance firm, Allan Hochreiter. In his presentation, Allan estimated that diamond prices will return to 2008 levels by end of 2010 owing to the global economic recovery and strong demand from emerging markets such as China and India. He also said that the two Asian countries will be major players in the diamond market in the next two decades. Rough & Polished’s Mathew Nyaungwa caught up with Allan on the sidelines of the conference to find out more on his presentation. Below are the excerpts.
Alexander Boguslavsky, General Manager of the Prioksky Nonferrous Metals Plant, which celebrated its 20th anniversary from the date of its first output, gave the following interview to Rough&Polished.
Nizhne-Lenskoye, a public company established in 1994, is engaged in mining natural diamonds in Eastern Siberia (Yakutia). It is the first diamond-mining enterprise in Yakutia which is independent of ALROSA Group. The company’s only shareholder is the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) represented by its Ministry for Property Relations. Nizhne-Lenskoye produces about $100 million worth of diamonds a year. Vladimir Kychkin, CEO of Nizhne-Lenskoye, answers the questions of Rough&Polished.U.S. chain-store sales rose 3.8 percent this past week compared with one year ago, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) and Goldman Sachs. Little change in comparable store sales was recorded from the prior week though. ICSC expects comparable store sales at the chains to register a 3 percent to 4 percent increase, RAPAPORT reported.
"Easy comparisons continue to lift sales—though not as much as the prior week— while the abnormally hot weather helped drive some customer traffic in some regions," said Michael Niemira, ICSC director of research and chief economist. "The retail industry is in the transition period between summer clearance and back-to-school with back-to-school really kicking in during early August as a wave of states have their state sales tax holidays to help consumers as they head back into school."
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