Exclusive
Diamond market crash is Africa’s opportunity, not its crisis – M'zée Fula Ngenge
Global natural diamond supply is forecast to fall below 95 million carats this year, the lowest since 1987. For Dr. M'zée Fula Ngenge, chairperson of the African Diamond Council (ADC), this is not a death knell but a clarion call. In an exclusive...
Yesterday
Tracr passes 5 million rough diamonds milestone as De Beers expands provenance push
De Beers Group's blockchain-enabled traceability platform Tracr reached a significant milestone in 2025, with more than 5 million rough diamonds individually scanned and registered, up from 2.8 million cumulative registrations reported in 2024. The...
28 september 2026
South African diamonds head to Hong Kong: SDT partners with BRINKS for JGW 2026
South Africa’s State Diamond Trader (SDT) has confirmed the country's participation in Jewellery & Gem World Hong Kong (JGW) 2026 through a partnership with BRINKS. SDT marketing and communication manager Tsholofelo Gopolang Tselapedi...
14 september 2026
David Benderly: PermaScribe seeks to put trust mark on diamond table, not just girdle
In this interview with Rough & Polished’s Mathew Nyaungwa, PhotoScribe Technologies president and chief executive David Benderly explains how PermaScribe differs technically from conventional laser inscription, its potential to strengthen security, and...
31 august 2026
The great reset: Paul Zimnisky on supply catharsis, De Beers' bargain and the case for natural diamonds
The natural diamond industry is in the throes of its most profound reset in a generation. Supply is plunging to its lowest level since 1987 and De Beers—once valued at over $9 billion—is reportedly being sold for as little as $1 billion.
Lab-grown...
10 august 2026
What is the SIIS PMPS for the Russian market - an armour or a leaky sieve?
21 november 2022
The reason for writing this article was the response of consumers to the headline of the news in the public media that the deadlines for the introduction of mandatory jewellery marking in Russia have been extended until 2024. While inside the jewellery community, all the market participants understand what the matter is, ordinary jewellery buyers, that is, citizens, were suddenly alarmed that they would bear some risks for more than a year when buying jewellery pieces... So, are Russian jewellery buyers protected from faked jewellery today, or do they still have to wait for some time?
Nickel market in 2022: So far, without sanctions and OPEC
14 november 2022
Prices for nickel, like for other metals, were under the ‘bearish trend’ pressure in the second half of this year due to the consequences of a new COVID-19 outbreak in China, tightening the monetary policy by central banks, and recession expectations. These factors have led to weakness in the steel industry, which has so far dominated nickel demand. Meanwhile, the important role of nickel in the electric vehicle (EV) sector makes it possible to look positively at the long-term outlook for the metal. Most market stakeholders predict a market surplus in 2022 and 2023, although it will be predominantly the surplus of low-grade metal, while the market for high-grade nickel used in batteries will be balanced or show a moderate deficit. The long-term forecast for the nickel market development may be impacted by two possible, although not obvious, circumstances like the restrictions on the export of the Russia’s nickel and the setting up of a ‘nickel OPEC’; this option is under consideration in Indonesia, the largest nickel producer.
WGC Report: Chain stores comprise 35% of India’s retail gold jewellery market
07 november 2022
The World Gold Council launched a report titled ‘Jewellery market structure’ recently, as part of a series of in-depth analyses on the Indian gold market. According to the report, supported by the changes in consumer behaviour and government regulations, a paradigm shift has occurred in India’s gold jewellery market over the past few years. While small independent retailers still dominate the landscape, chain stores, both national and regional, have increased steadily over the last decade thereby increasing their market share. However, compared to the retail jewellery trade, changes at the manufacturing level have been relatively slower.
What will be “not right” in Russia with small jewellery business?
31 october 2022
The Internet resources contain no archive of data on this issue, but the author of this material has recorded the statistics for the last 5,5 years, from May 2017 through October 2022. During this time, the number of SMEs in the jewellery industry operating under the abovementioned OKVED codes decreased by 40.1%, from 18,346 to 10,987. It is noteworthy that over the same period, the total number of SMEs in the Russian Federation decreased from 6,080,091 to 5,881,027 units, i.e., only by 3.3%. In other words, the rate of decline in the number of SMEs in the jewellery sector in this period turned out to be 12 times higher than the rate of decline in SMEs in the economy as a whole.
Russia’s Gold Industry
24 october 2022
At the turn of the century Russia possessed a gold industry that had promise but was unproductive by world standards. Since then, it has grown to become the world’s third largest by production with the potential to grow further still. The growth of the industry reflects a more general push by the Russian state to make natural resources the basis for economic growth. Russia’s Strategy for the Development of the Mineral Resource Base of Russia until 2035 (‘the Strategy’), which was published in 2018, calls for a doubling down on resource extraction to ensure Russia remains a major commodities producer and exporter.
The situation in the global copper market
17 october 2022
Copper is among the most actively used metals and has a very wide range of consumption, that is why the change in copper prices quite clearly reflects the state of the global economy as a whole, correlating well with the world GDP dynamics and correlating even better with the manufacturing PMI and oil prices.
The gold market: A smooth decline of main protective asset
10 october 2022
The price for gold rose to $2,000 an ounce for a short time in late February and early March as the conflict between Russia and Ukraine escalated, but geopolitical risks gradually dropped off investors’ radar. A record 40-year rise in inflation in the United States and higher interest rates came to the fore. While the money of most investors is rushing out of gold ETFs, the physical metal consumption is also declining in the jewellery industry in India and China, leading in gold purchases. Experts attribute the recovery in the gold price to the escalation of the geopolitical risks that spur demand for defensive assets, which already happened in March 2022. Another factor is the end of the tight monetary policy cycle, to which the market may respond ahead of schedule, that is, without waiting for announcing the decisions to cut rates.
Are sanctioned Russian diamonds reaching the American consumer? “Yes”… and “No”, but for those knowingly involved, Spoiler Alert: you are playing with fire
29 september 2022
It is clear that Russian Alrosa diamonds are finding their way into the global supply chain and via various mechanisms, mostly perfectly legal, end up with a non-Russian country of origin. This article details some of those mechanisms and the possible medium-term consequences, especially for those who are knowingly involved.
Russia in the global market of coloured gemstones: rough semi-precious stones
26 september 2022
In this review of Russia’s role in the global market of coloured jewellery stones, the talk is about the rough semi-precious stones. According to the customs nomenclature, this is code 710310 - “Precious stones (other than diamonds) and semi-precious stones, unworked or just cut, crushed or semi-worked” (code HS6 ID 710310). To simplify this text, these gems are called “rough semi-precious stones”.
Rare earth elements are strategic metals of the future
19 september 2022
Rare earth elements (REEs), rare earth metals (REMs), rare earth metal oxides, rare earths - these are the names of 17 metals of the future the world powers are competing for. It is referred to, in particular, scandium, yttrium and 15 lanthanide elements, including lanthanum, cerium, praseodymium, neodymium, promethium, samarium, europium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, holmium, erbium, thulium, ytterbium, lutetium. These elements are usually divided into two groups - light and heavy metals. As a rule, the concentration of the light metals in the earth’s crust is greater than that of the heavy ones. The word “rare earth” should not be misleading, as it does not mean that these are rare metals. On the contrary, they can be discovered even more often than copper, lead, tin or gold. Metals are called so because they are extremely rare in the earth’s crust in a concentrated (rather than dispersed) form suitable for use on an industrial scale.
