The Kimberley Process (KP), which is currently led by Russia, is testing the use of digital certificates for rough-diamond shipments in a bid to improve “efficiency and reduce fraud”. “Digital data exchange will significantly increase the efficiency of export [and] import operations, as well as speed up the statistics exchange between KP participants,” an unnamed Russian KP spokesperson was quoted as saying by Rapaport.
Russia will test the idea with exports to select countries.
Participating nations will identify officials whose electronic signatures will be valid for confirming a KP certificate’s legitimacy.
The exporting and importing countries will exchange unique codes to confirm that someone in authority has approved the document, according to Rapaport.
In addition, an official from a national authority must physically sign a paper certificate — declaring that the diamonds meet the KP’s conflict-free requirements — before the export can take place.
Eventually, Russia wants to replace paper certificates with QR codes on packaging, enabling importers to check that the certificate matches the contents of the parcels, said the spokesperson.
World Diamond Council (WDC) executive director Elodie Daguzan said the digital certificates will likely be on the agenda at the virtual KP intersessional meeting in June.
“The Russian proposal is definitely an interesting one that will be evaluated in detail by the different KP bodies involved,” Daguzan said.
“In this context, we also need to study what levels of digitalization can reasonably be achieved by all KP participants, and at what cost.”
Mathew Nyaungwa, Editor in Chief of the African Bureau, Rough&Polished
