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Category: Trade Organisations

Created on Monday, 21 November 2011 15:27

Written by Naida Ally

The UK jewellery industry "has been left baffled following the recent announcement that Zimbabwe is once again to be included in the Kimberley Process (KP)," according to the ethics committee of the National Association of Jewellers and British Jewellers' Association, which added that "the message from inside the UK trade has been of confusion and disappointment on the lack of effectiveness of the KP to prevent diamonds mined from the troubled Marange diamond fields from entering the supply chain."

Following a meeting in Kinshasa on the 1 November 2011, the KP agreed to allow the export of rough diamonds from two KP compliant operations in the Marange region. But as the ethics committee point out, since 2009 Marange diamonds have "consistently been refused KP accreditation owing to human rights abuses and alleged non-compliance with KP certification requirements."

Michael Hoare of the National Association of Goldsmiths (NAG) said: "I had sincerely hoped that the Kinshasa meeting would counter retailers' doubts once and for all so that they could pass on credible assurances to the public about the provenance of their diamonds. I fear that it has in fact generated a lot of heat but not a lot of light and failed to put their doubts to rest."

The British Jewellers' Association chief executive Simon Rainer added: "While Marange diamonds maybe now compliant to the KP scheme, they are not compliant with the moral and ethical standards that the majority of the world subscribes to."

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