Diamond Industry Loses Its Sparkle

[Music] I'm joined now by a van Gogh loaned from Tel Aviv in Israel and he is an analyst in the diamond industry fantastic to have you on the program tell us how much Sparkle has the diamond industry lost how badly has it been hit like many businesses in around the world jewelry sales the consumers have fell significantly and China the United States the two largest consumer markets in that regard sales has come to near a complete standstill that of course affected everything up the supply chain to all the way up to mining so what happens now does this make the ones that are still available even more expensive for consumers on the contrary first of all as the demand declines naturally prices decline with it we already know that in the past month in May prices have declined by about 3 or 4 percent mainly because many wholesalers wanted to generate some cash flow so they did whatever they could in order to generate sales but I expect that to be temporary what's retailers to demand from consumers revived which is a very likely scenario this is what we saw the past after 911 or other consumer and economic crises in the past my belief prices will be restored maybe we'll take a little bit of time but once weddings are back and and and Bridal is the most important driver once those things are back I believe the prices will be back in place so you're saying in a way it's not a good time to get married now or to propose on the contrary - okay it's always a good time to give me always a good time to get married okay and the tell us a bit more about what this means practically fought for the industry for consumers canvas industry actually go online if you can't touch and see the diamonds well it's one of the issues the diamond industry has been struggling with mainly on the consumer side what we found over the past 20 years is that jewelry sales are usually growing online at a similar pace to most other items but diamond jewelry in particular especially those that are higher in where the diamond is an important component of the of the price we see that consumers are a little bit more hesitant so as a category it's growing a little bit more slower than say cars or clothing or anything else and the understanding is that consumers often want to see the diamond before they do so so if we're looking at an era where people are doing more from home a big work or or other experiences and especially shopping I think that it's very important for the diamond industry especially on the retail side to find the right model that will make it convenient for consumers to shop online and and shop online with confidence I don't know if it's I don't think it's simple but I'm sure that there's a way to work this out and hopefully I will happen soon enough in terms of the mystery as far as traders online trade is a very common practice for for many years now interesting and tell us how global is this which countries have been the most affected by this well it depends of the sector in terms of mining Botswana and Russia have been very negatively affected those are the two main sources so as Angola Canada to a lesser degree because of much more diverse economy but Botswana that completely relies on income from diamonds and and we're talking about everything is based on diamonds their ability to develop their infrastructure education medical care L is financed by proceeds from diamonds buts one has been very hard it and that is an issue in terms of the midstream that section of the diamond industry where manufacturing takes place Israel as hard hit Antwerp Belgium has been our date and of course India which is where most of diamonds are being polished and in terms of retail of course the United States and and China people know in terms of percentage of the economy the impact is negligible but as far as Belgium Israel Russia boots wine our concern this is this is very painful I think Golan from Tel Aviv thank you so much and I'll be telling everyone it is a good time to get married now thank you so much for your time and your thoughts appreciate it [Music] you

Channel: TRT World Now

Views: 389

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Surat Diamond Market, De Beers Forevermark, Coronavirus Freezes Industry, diamond industry, Edahn Golan Diamond Research, diamond industry news, De Beers, Alrosa, diamond trade, diamond miners, edahn golan interview, trt world interview, trt world news

Id: tc6yVIWBGPI

Length: 5min 38sec (338 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 12 2020