Has Israel's diamond export fully recovered from the global recession?

The diamond market is far from recovering from the financial recession, especially if you look at Israel's diamond trading. From January until Sep 2009, diamond export has been only 47% than export in the parallel months in 2008. The most severe decrease of export was present between October 2008 and March 2009, as one can expect. As a result, when it comes to rough diamond importing, Israel has also moved to a lower gear. During the first 9 months of 2009 the country has imported 40% of the amount of rough diamonds it has important in the same period in 2008. The US, by the way, is Israel's main diamond export target, responsible for about half of Israel's diamond export profits. Hong Kong (1/4), Switzerland and Belgium are also significant polished diamond importers from Israel's diamond export market.

This study that I have read refers to the first 3 quarter of 2009, but clearly the peak of the recession in the diamond market was between October 2008 and February 2009. Since then things are improving, but this evolution is slow, and would probably continue this way for at least the next 6 months. If the import and export of polished and rough diamonds (specifically in Israel, but in other diamond producing and trading countries as well) in the beginning of the year reached only 20-30% of the parallel months in 2008, in Sep- Oct trade reaches 70% or more than its quantity in 2008%. Things are improving, the trend is definitely positive, by there's still a gap which most diamond traders need to face. Some traders have already made suitable adjustments, but some continue to lose money, and will probably continue this way until the diamond market will be 100% recovered from the recession.

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