Image credit: ENDIAMA
Endiama president Ganga Júnior was quoted by Angop as saying that production will rise to 8.3 million carats in December, a 20% decline from the initial target.
Endiama had targeted to produce 10.5 million carats this year and realise revenue of $1.4 billion.
The decline was due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Júnior told a virtual diamond conference last week that Endiama was now expecting to collect $1.1 billion in revenue.
He also said Endiama had stockpiled diamonds due to weak demand.
"So far we have stocks of diamonds as a result of weak demand, but recently we have already started to sense an increase in demand,” said Júnior.
Endiama could not reveal the amount of carats it had stockpiled.
Angola earned about 1.3 billion from just over 9.44 million carats of diamonds sold in 2019.
Prior to the pandemic, Endiama was working on boosting its production to position itself as one of the top three largest diamond miners in the world.
Mathew Nyaungwa, Editor in Chief of the African Bureau, Rough&Polished
