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RAPAPORT... Botswana is looking to rival the major diamond cutting and polishing centers of Belgium, Israel, and India, as the manufacturing sector in the southern Africa country begins to take shape.
Botswana President Festus Mogae told Mining Weekly that, “for the first time,” diamond cutting and diamond polishing were now taking place in Botswana, which wanted to be “no less” a center for manufacturing than the big three.
Mogae said that a total of 16 cutting-and-polishing houses had been licensed, with six of them already operational, and the remaining 10 aiming to be operational in the next three years, Mining Weekly reported.
“That’s a very important and ambitious project. We aim to be a diamond center no less than, and comparable to, Antwerp, Ramat Gan, and Mumbai,” he said.
Botswana is the largest diamond producer in the world by value, mining in excess of $3 billion worth of diamonds a year, and has been part of a recent drive among African countries to extend their reach in the diamond chain beyond mining.
The president said that Botswana was not asking the cutting-and-polishing houses to move their works to Botswana, but rather requesting them to include Botswana as one of the places where they cut and polished diamonds.
“Since they have facilities in New York, London, Antwerp, Mumbai, Thailand and so on, they should also have facilities here,” he said.
Diamonds account for about 70 percent of the Botswana’s export earnings.
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