Dubai to auction Zim gems

Mr Ernest Denhere, deputy chief investment officer of the Mutapa Investment Fund (MIF), said the structural market shift posed unprecedented challenges for the Zimbabwe Consolidated Diamond Company (ZCDC), which is among the State-owned enterprises under the sovereign wealth fund. He was speaking on Friday during a tour of ZCDC’s operations at Chiadzwa by Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee.

Mernat Mafirakurewa Business Editor—
THE Dubai Diamond Exchange (DDE) is set to hold its first rough diamond tender for the country’s diamonds later this month as local gems continue to gain international acceptance. The tender will be held between March 23 and March 30. Zimbabwe has so far held two foreign diamond auctions at Antwerp in Belgium in December and February, in the process raking in $10,5 million and $70 million respectively.

Companies that will take part in the auction include Anjin, Jinan, DTZ, Diamond Mining Company, Marange Resources and Kusena.
The tender for the rough gems will mark the third diamond sale organised by the DDE and facilitated by Global Diamond Tenders in cooperation with Dubai Multi-Commodities Centre.

“It is no coincidence that Dubai has emerged as the leading global diamond platform.
“We have created an incredible infrastructure, services and products which directly assist the industry traders.

“Our policies and regulations are strong and we are ideally positioned to support the trade from the producing nations in Africa to the consuming nations in the East and West,” Ahmed Bin Sulayem, the executive chairman of the Dubai Multi-Commodities Centre (DMCC), told Rapport Magazine one of the world’s leading diamond magazines.

“The DDE has been instrumental in ensuring that African diamond markets have a voice and a platform to trade their products. The DDE and Dubai is now an established distribution and diamond centre for those diamonds,” DDC chairman Peter Meeus said.

There has been growing demand for the country’s gems since the European Union lifted its illegal trade embargo on the Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation.

Mbada Diamonds chairman Robert Mhlanga last week told Parliament that he was not happy with the auctioning of diamonds in Antwerp given the previous frosty relations between the country and European Union.

“I have strong reservations about Antwerp because they are our yesteryear enemies.
“We have actually reeled under sanctions thanks to Brussels and for us now because they claimed to have lifted sanctions and we run to them.

“Personally, I have my own reservations,” Mhlanga said.
“I don’t think that is good. I strongly believe that as Zimbabwe we have capacity to hold auctions in this country where hundreds of companies can attend.”