Kristall offered to sell some of its polished goods to Gokhran

Smolensk-based Kristall, Russia’s largest diamond manufacturer, turned to Gokhran, the State Repository, with an offer to buy part of the company's polished goods, as Maxim Shkadov, CEO of Kristall, told Interfax. The news was published on www.finmarket.ru. Earlier, an offer to buy rough diamonds was made to Gokhran by ALROSA.
Maxim Shkadov did not specify the possible amount of diamonds to be sold, but said he expects the proportion including rough diamonds from ALROSA to be 80 to 20 (80% - rough diamonds from ALROSA and 20% - polished diamonds from Kristall).
"For us this (selling to the State Repository) would be very good, as the market is sluggish. And such a transaction, as it has been proved on repeated occasions, gives the state a chance to earn money," Maxim Shkadov said. He could not predict any final decision about whether the deal will take place and its possible terms, because "such a decision is made at the level of the government," which is currently discussing the issue at its meetings.
The last time Gokhran made large-scale purchases of polished goods from Kristall was in 2009, when the government authorized Gokhran to buy rough diamonds from ALROSA and polished diamonds from Kristall for a total amount of about $1 billion as a move to support the diamond mining and diamond cutting industries in Russia. In the 2nd quarter of 2012, Gokhran bought RUB3.48 billion worth of rough goods from ALROSA under the terms of the country’s budget assignment, but at that time no plans were made to purchase diamonds from Kristall.
Kristall, which is 100 percent controlled by the Russian Federal Property Management Agency, is Europe's largest diamond manufacturer producing polished goods classified as Double Excellent and Triple Excellent.