Gokhran may get the right to export precious stones and precious metals

(finmarket.ru) – It is proposed to give the Gokhran, Russia’s state repository, the right to sell precious metals and precious stones from the State Fund of Russia in international markets, judging by the materials prepared for the meeting of the Government Commission on Legislative Activity, which considered the relevant bill on Monday.
Currently, the Gokhran may only sell precious metals and precious stones to buyers in the domestic market. This, however, did not prevent ALROSA's foreign clients last year — helped by the company acting as an intermediary — from purchasing large amounts of diamonds from the Gokhran against the backdrop of a shortage in the diamond market.
The reason for the expansion of the Gokhran's functions is the privatization of JSC Almazyuvelirexport (formerly a federal state unitary enterprise; now 100% of the JSC's stock belongs to the Russian Federation), the media communication of the Russian Federation Ministry of Finance explained to Interfax. Almazyuvelirexport is authorized to export valuables kept in the State Fund, as well as rough diamonds, precious metals and precious stones of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation and sell representative lots of rough natural diamonds.
Almazyuvelirexport in post-Soviet times and until 2009 had the exclusive right to export precious metals from the Russian Federation. Norilsk Nickel's platinoids and the Central Bank’s stocks were exported through this company. Now Almazyuvelirexport is exporting control lots of diamonds from ALROSA and AGD Diamonds to determine their market value for accounting purposes required by relevant government agencies. About 5% of ALROSA's diamond sales go through Almazyuvelirexport, which were estimated at 332 billion rubles in 2021.
In the future, the function of selling control lots of diamonds may go to the Gokhran, Deputy Finance Minister Alexei Moiseev said at the end of last year. The meaning of this function is that, by carrying out parallel sales, the state would be 100% convinced of the absence of transfer pricing in the sale of diamonds, he explained.
The Gokhran made large sales of rough diamonds worth about $230 million last year (and another $154 million in March of this year). At least 70% of this rough was purchased by ALROSA on behalf of its long-term clients - members of the ALROSA Alliance.