Recovering diamond market could result in more cutting and polishing factories

(New Era) - With diamond sales demand picking up in 2017, coupled with a relatively new sales and marketing agreement between the government and De Beers, the Namibia Diamond Trading Company (NDTC) has not ruled out the possibility of more players entering the cutting a polishing arena. This is according to the NDTC, which currently sells rough stones to 11 local cutting and polishing factories, known as sightholders, who purchase the precious stones directly from the NDTC for local value addition. Since its inception, NDTC has paid out N$1,7 billion in dividends to both its shareholders (government and De Beers) and has paid about N$1,1 billion in taxes to government. According to senior manager for sales and marketing at NDTC Brent Esieb, the industry already witnessed string demand during the first quarter of 2017 and he foresees this trend continuing for the rest of the year. This follows a dramatic drop in sales in the second half of 2015.