VAT imperils Dubai’s diamond trade, DDE chairman warns

(The Gulf News) - Dubai: VAT on loose diamonds will imperil the diamond trade Dubai has spent 15 years building, Peter Meeus, Chairman of Dubai Diamond Exchange (DDE) said on Monday. Speaking at the opening day of the Dubai Diamond Conference, at Dubai Multi-Commodities Centre’s (DMCC) Almas Tower, Meeus launched a stark warning about the state of the diamond trade worldwide: “Winter is coming.” Meeus said that later this week DMCC representatives would meet with federal officials to try to convince them for giving loose diamonds a zero-per-cent tariff in the UAE VAT, to become active on Jan. 1, 2018. “That would allow the UAE diamond trade to grow further in the search of excellence,” he said. “The same zero-per-cent tariff is currently the standard in all other diamond centres across the world. “I’m not really happy to mention this problem in public, in our own conference and in the presence of so many international visitors, but at the same time it has to be said loud and clear: if this challenge is not solved, all that we have done in the last 15 years will have been for nothing.”