Colin Shah, Chairman of the Gems and Jewellery Export Council (GJEPC), has commented on the state of the lab-grown diamond industry in India, saying that his country could significantly increase its production to support a “stronger and more self-reliant domestic cutting and polishing industry,” IDEX Online reports.
India currently produces around 1.5 million carats, “a distant second” to China’s 3 million carats a year, according to 2021 numbers. Shah claims that the industry has the potential to employ one million people and process “150 million carats of lab-grown diamonds and achieve an export turnover of $5.14 billion in ‘the near future’”.
Currently, India’s cutting and polishing industry, principally in Surat, is deeply impacted by “severe rough shortages as sanctions and banking restrictions hit supplies from Russia.”
