Saurimo, Angola Image credit: YouTube, Autolic
SODIAM, Angola’s national diamond trading company will launch a professional diamond-cutting course at the Provisional Diamond Evaluation and Diamond Cutting Center in Saurimo in the Angolan province of Lunda-Sul.
The course will run for three months and is intended to train 35 diamond cutters selected through a public competition from a group of 50 candidates, 15 of which will be trained in India.
The Angolan authorities seek to fill the shortage of workers trained in diamond evaluation, cutting and polishing to help the diamond manufacturing units to be established at the Saurimo Diamond Development Center recruit Angolan staff skilled in diamond cutting and polishing.
They also intend to provide jobs for young people born in the area surrounding diamond mines.
The main idea is to employ the trainees at the largest diamond cutting factory to be ever installed in Angola in the province of Lunda-Sul in the first quarter of 2021 within public-private cooperation between SODIAM and KGK, India’s multinational diamond manufacturer.
It is planned that the Provisional Diamond Evaluation and Diamond Cutting Center in Saurimo set up by SODIAM will be later replaced by a permanent training center under construction at the Saurimo Diamond Development Center.
The provisional and permanent training centers will be used to train Angolan staff, especially from local population, to be further employed at diamond manufacturing units seated within the Diamond Development Center.
The training cycle was initially scheduled to start in April this year, but constraints created by the COVID-19 pandemic did not allow this to happen.
Dias Francisco, correspondent of Rough&Polished in Angola
