In a caution about the challenges facing the global diamond industry, Kimberley Process Chair Ahmed Bin Sulayem expressed the United Arab Emirate's commitment to act responsibly to overcome challenges, according to media reports.
He said that this year would be "a challenging year for our industry with continuing oversupply, low commodity prices and tightening liquidity. The social impact of these combining factors is likely to be severe and felt across large parts of the world's diamond producing regions.”
In other comments, he said that the KP Chair is committed to further engaging with Venezuela to provide technical assistance and proactively support the scheduled Review Mission in 2016.
“We are confident this will lead to the readmission of Venezuela as a full member of the KPCS,” he said.
On the resumption of rough diamonds exports from the Central African Republic, he said: “We trust that the initiatives taken by the Central African Republic Monitoring Team under the approved operational framework will lead to the successful resumption of exports.”
