The diamond industry in South Africa is managing the Covid-19 pandemic well, according to local media reports.
South African Diamond Producers Organisation (Sadpo) chairperson Gert van Niekerk was quoted by Mining Weekly as saying that its members had adapted well to the challenges amid the current circumstances.
The South African diamond mining industry has so far recorded three positive cases of Covid-19, which have all fully recovered.
Van Niekerk said Sadpo is working with the departments of Mineral Resources and Energy and Environment, Forestry and Fisheries to change regulations around financial provisions and environmental management plans to simplify the mine permitting and prospecting right processes for small opencast operations.
He, however, said the diamond market was depressed due to the inability of international companies to travel to South Africa to purchase diamonds.
Van Niekerk also decried poor diamond prices locally.
“We must make sure that our goods are being exposed as widely as possible for marketing purposes during these testing times and, simultaneously, avoid unnecessary opportunistic buying,” he said.
Mathew Nyaungwa, Editor in Chief of the African Bureau, Rough&Polished
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