A recent report from Bloomberg, quoted by IDEX Online, claims that Russia’s Alrosa’s ongoing sale of diamonds to traders in India and Belgium are “fracturing the global trade.”
Alrosa has been hit with sanctions from the US since its invasion of Ukraine in February; still, its rough diamond sales have reached $250 million a month. In India, the story is complicated: While officially India hasn’t imposed sanctions on Russian stones, “most of its midstream is still avoiding Alrosa because its Western customers won’t buy Russian, but some are breaking ranks,” according to the report.
The EU also has not sanctioned Russian diamonds, and Antwerp traders can still buy from Alrosa. Last week, while addressing delegates at the two-day Facets 2022 convention in Antwerp, Belgium’s prime minister Alexander De Croo reiterated his country’s opposition to sanctions on Russian diamonds.
This has created a “two-tier system – those who will trade with Russia and those who won’t – “[that] is fracturing the global trade,” according to the report. According to Bloomberg, deals are “happening quietly, even for the famously secretive diamond world”.
