The global Diamond fraternity met on Friday morning at the ongoing India International Jewellery Show (IIJS) in Mumbai to form the International Diamond Monitoring Committee (IDMC), an initiative to ensure the separation of natural diamonds from synthetics in their journey through the process pipeline to the retail counter.
Gem & Jewellery Export Promotion Council (GJEPC) Chairman Praveenshankar Pandya told industry media that apart from the GJEPC itself, the IDMC meeting had participation from the Bharat Diamond Bourse (BDB), the Antwerp World Diamond Council (AWDC), the Diamond Producers Association (DPA), the All India Gems & Jewellery Trade Federation (GJF), the Israel Diamond Exchange (IDE), representatives from China, Hong Kong and the US, along with jewellery retail major Signet.
“We have to ensure separate footprints for naturals and synthetics all the way from mining to retail markets,” Pandya said. He added, “the committee will look at issues such as standardising nomenclature and aligning the diamond processing industry with world jewellery markets.”
Pandya said that the Indian industry would take the initiative to 21 cities in the immediate future. These cities would all have common access facilities that would provide access to the low-cost synthetic diamond detection equipment developed by the Gemmological Institute of India (GII). These facilities could be accessed by the local retail industry to provide extra assurance to consumers.
“We want to ensure that the two separate products have distinctly separate process pipelines and the IDMC initiative is going to work towards that. But we also want to give Indian consumers that extra measure of comfort by giving them the opportunity to ask their jewellers to retest the diamonds set in their jewellery and reassure them.”
The IDMC is slated to meet next at Hong Kong, during the September gem and jewellery show there.
Referring to the state of the Indian domestic jewellery industry, Pandya said that while the demonetisation of ₹500 and ₹1,000 notes last year, along with the rollout of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) on July 1 this year were issues that temporarily slowed the trade, business had now picked up and looked at increasing further.
“Transparency in the business has increased as have digital transactions in the wake of the demonetisation,” Pandya said. He added, “GST is an excellent system, but now that it has been introduced, we have been dealing with several teething problems.”
He went on to say, “The industry and its product are being taxed at a good rate and the system allows us considerable operating freedom. However issues regarding inter-state transactions and the movement of goods, as well as issues specific to the export production industry have been flagged. We expect these issues to be resolved in the next two months.”
https://www.gemkonnect.com/news/global-panel-ensure-separation-natural-synthetic-diamonds