What De Beers curtailing of rough diamond production means for Surat's polishing industry
According to the De Beers company website, rough diamond trading was 'challenging' in the first half of 2025, and polished diamond rates stabilised globally at the end of the first quarter. Business was affected largely because of the 'uncertainty surrounding US tariffs announced in April' which impacted trade of polished diamonds, the report stated.
The sentiment corresponds with business data shared by the Gems & Jewellery Export Promotion Council ( GJEPC) which shows a 22.72% decline in the gross exports of cut and polished natural diamonds in the second quarter (April – June 2025) which stood at USD 2837.29 million (Rs. 24270.19 crores) as compared to USD 3671.33 million (Rs. 30623.29 crores) for the same period of previous year. The gross imports of rough diamonds in the same period this year is at USD 3222.93 million (Rs 27567.68 crores) have shown a decline of 5.13% compared with the imports at USD 3397.08 million (Rs. 28330.10 crores) for previous year.
In terms of volume, the gross import of rough diamonds was 272.64 lakh carats during in the second quarter, down by 8.72% compared to last year.
Savji Dholakia, Chairman of Hari Krishna Exports, a leading diamond manufacturing and export company in Surat, told The Indian Express, 'The diamond industry is passing through a bad phase of recession, as there is no major demand in the international market. The reduction in production of rough diamonds by De Beers will not create any impact on the present condition, as in the last three years, the natural diamond cutting and polishing have gone down by over 30 per cent. The steps taken by De Beers will help to build a stronger market for natural diamonds when there is a shortage of inventory, and it will also help to stabilise the market for cut and polished diamonds.'
According to GJEPC Gujarat president Jayentibhai Savaliya , 'The De Beers group had curtailed the production of the rough diamonds from its sources because the market condition of natural polished diamonds is not preferable. The group doesn't want to increase production and reduce the rate of natural rough diamonds. By controlling the production, they wanted to maintain the prices of rough diamonds globally.'
Surat Diamond Association president Jagdish Khut said, ' Presently, there is no shortage of supply of rough diamonds in the industry. We have not received any such complaint from any of the diamond manufacturing companies or traders. The purpose of reducing production could be that they wanted to clear the earlier stock.'
Diamond trader and ex-president of SDA Damji Mawani agrees on the lack of major demand for natural diamonds in the international market. 'As a result, in Surat, many factory owners who were earlier in cutting and polishing natural diamonds have diverted them to Lab Grown Diamonds (LGD). There are diamond factories that are running both units, LGD and natural diamonds parallelly. Around 60 to 70 per cent of the natural diamond companies in Surat jumped into LGD. The domestic sales of LGD had also grown', Mawani says.
However, exports of LGD in the second quarter also showed a decline by 19 % reducing from USD 319.7 in the corresponding period last year, to USD 258.5 million this year.
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