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Antwerp
By Marc Goldstein
With great enthusiasm, Antwerp, the city that never stops reinventing itself, has come up with a brand new fair, CARAT+. It opened its doors in the premises of the Antwerp Expo on May 7 for three full days, including one evening as well. More of a full-fledged show, CARAT+ featured 116 exhibitors from 14 countries, attracting almost 3,000 visitors from 29 nations over the three-day period. Organized by Filip Van Laere and his partners, the show definitely had the feel of a genuine international event. Spacious and beautifully set, it provided ample room for everyone to comfortably view the exhibits and interact. Obviously, it was difficult to see CARAT+ and not be tempted to compare it with the Antwerp Diamond Trade Fair (ADTF), which has been taking place at the heart of the diamond mile for several years now. It is still premature to decide which is best.
However, regardless of aesthetics or size, it’s the exhibitors who will have the final call on CARAT+. Albert Safrana, head of the Andre Messika Group, elaborated, “This show is more agreeable than the one in the bourses, where there seem to be less visitors. But this is its first year, so there are lots of things to improve here as well. The quality of the merchants and of the clients is good, but there are too few people in the aisles.” Ron Rahmanan of Sara Gem in New York added, “This is mainly a diamond show and the organizers wanted to add precious stones, top-quality ones, which is why they suggested we come. One thing that I noticed in this show in particular, which bares witness to the quality of the buyers present, was that they understood and appreciated fine color stones such as the ones we displayed. I must say that there are many other diamond shows where they just don’t get it. I’m convinced that there’s a lot of potential for this show. However, as is the case for the other show in Antwerp and everywhere in general, the difficult task is to bring visitors who have an appetite to buy.” Some sales were concluded, but this first installment was definitely not enough to have a final opinion. Still, it didn’t prevent an Indian manufacturer from commenting, “This show has the potential to become popular and appear on the radar of diamantaires.” CARAT+ is also a place for generating PR. Bob Nasrollahi, CEO of Amin Luxury, creator of the new Leonardo Da Vinci cut, explained, “Our cut was designed together with the Niru Group according to the divine proportion number — known as the golden ratio — 1.618. This pentagonal table round cut could hopefully create a new standard for the industry, as it generates automatically a triple EX. So far the International Gemological Institute (IGI) has already agreed to consider our cut as a real cut and not as a modified round brilliant. Our next step was to meet HRD people here, and see how we could work together. And then later, we’ll tackle the Gemological Institute of America (GIA).” Roberto Coin, co-founder and chairman of his eponymous company and board member of the World Diamond Council (WDC) concluded, “We wanted to help give credibility to this show and to Antwerp by being present. The aim is to attract more designers next year to connect even further with the loose diamond industry. This fair probably should have been set up 30 years ago, as Antwerp is one of the most important diamond centers in the world, where clients can find basically everything. As far as the presence of two competing fairs in Antwerp, ADTF and CARAT+, my guess is that the two should unite and find a way to make a better and bigger fair with the assets everyone can bring to the wedding.”
That being said, another phenomenon is reported to be taking place in the industry over the past few years. If two decades ago buyers stopped coming to Antwerp, it was, among other reasons, due to the increasing number of trade shows and fairs, which ended up in making it too easy for buyers. They no longer saw the point in traveling while there was always a show coming next door. Clearly today, the industry is undergoing a reverse trend. As months and years go by, the traffic in trade shows appears to be slowly but surely declining. Parallel to that, more and more diamond centers have begun setting up targeted business meetings with selected foreign buyers coming for a short period to meet specific groups of diamond manufacturers and traders. The advantage of that system is obvious: for a very fair amount of money, actually a tiny fraction of the cost of a major trade fair, manufacturers and traders get to meet real buyers. Some of the major show organizers in the world even predict, if not the end, but a drastic drop of interest in the diamond trade fairs over the next five to ten years. In this context, the ADTF and CARAT+ organizers would have even more reasons to merge and come up with a great show to silence all the negative forecasts. Article from the Rapaport Magazine - June 2017. To subscribe click here.
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