According to a report by Zimbabwe’s state-run Sunday Mail, quoted by Mining Weekly, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe has stockpiled 300,000 carats of diamonds because of new regulations which “compel miners to pay half of their royalties using commodities.”
Central bank governor John Mangudya said that while the value of the diamond stockpile is hard to quantify, the bank’s old reserves stood at around 350 kilograms, or around $20 million.
In 2022, Zimbabwe introduced regulations that compel miners to pay half of their royalties to the government in the commodities themselves and the rest in cash, “as the southern African country seeks to build its mineral reserves,” according to the report.
