Diamond mining company Alrosa is reaching deep into the Asian market: according to Mining Weekly, the Russian mining giant is establishing a diamond center in Vladivostok, located in Russia’s Far East, with the goal of attracting trading and manufacturing companies and boosting gem sales to Asian countries – particularly in China.
According to Alrosa CEO Andrey Zharkov, who spoke about the project last Friday (September 2), approximately $1 billion of business is expected to go through the Eurasian Diamond Center in Vladivostok, which will be established during 2018. The Vladivostok-based hub will focus on similar services to the leading manufacturing and trading centers in Mumbai and Antwerp. Alrosa, which sold a combined $745 million of gems to India and China last year, plans by 2018 to double the sales in Vladivostok to the Asia Pacific region – one of the fastest-growing demand areas.
This week, it was revealed that Alrosa and Indian company KGK Diamonds, a wholesale distributor of gems, signed an agreement to create a cutting and polishing facility in Vladivostok. The company is planned to be established in July 2017, with a projected manufacturing capacity of at least 15,000 carats of natural diamonds per year in four years. According to the agreement, Alrosa will supply KGK with rough diamonds, and KGK will organize and develop the production process.
Plans to establish the Vladivostok-based hub were announced in 2015. In March, Alrosa said it planned the first September sale of rough and polished diamonds. According to a report in Rough & Polished earlier this week, Alrosa has already begun to sell rough and polished diamonds in its branch in Vladivostok. VP of Alrosa Yuri Okoemov revealed that the company’s sales will amount initially to $7-8 million, but pointed out that the “overall potential of the region is larger”. The goal, he said, is to reach $14-$16 million in sales of rough and polished diamonds per month by 2018.
