According to the Sierra Leone Government’s Gold and Diamond Office, diamond exports from Sierra Leone have increased by 43 percent in the first half of 2010, reaching 51.4 million dollars.
The first half of 2009 saw exports total $32,885,291.57, according to a press release.
Deputy Minister of Mineral Resources, Ignosis Koroma believes that this increase in diamond value can be attributed to government efforts to encourage diamond production combined with a global rebound in diamond prices. Independent news provider, PolishedPrices, reported that overall diamond prices are up 8 percent over prices recorded this time last year when demand for all luxury goods plummeted due to the global economic crisis.
Despite the increase in exported sales, Sierra Leone is still far behind the diamond boom they saw in years 2005-2007. These three years saw the highest number of diamond exports “since the Kimberley Certification project was implemented in 2000.” During these three years hundreds of thousands of carats of diamonds were exported each year, reaching a peak of over 800,000,000 carats of diamonds in 2007.
“[A] recent decision to reduce the fee for the export license for diamond dealers by five percent has paid dividends,” said Ignatius Koroma, Deputy Mining Minister of Sierra Leone. The export license costs have been reduced from 40,000 dollars to 35,000 dollars due to a drop in diamond demand and a general sluggishness in the diamond market.
The Sierra Leone government has made it a priority to control the illegal trafficking of
diamonds across its borders. Rampant diamond smuggling of “conflict diamonds” and “blood diamonds” during the country’s civil war which ended in 2002 has left a stain on the Sierra Leone diamond industry. The government hopes that its policing efforts will help the industry clean the stain and reemerge as a safe and legitimate source of rough diamonds.
