India's diamond skills sparkle, thanks to Israel

Wednesday, 10 September 2003, 19:30 IST
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NEW DELHI: Few probably know that India's sparkling performance in diamond cutting and polishing today has its genesis in Israeli tutelage. Today if India can proudly claim to be cutting and polishing nine out of 10 diamonds being sold in the global market, it is thanks to the skills imparted by the Israelis who have dominated the trade for decades. "When India opened up to explore the global market in the jewellery trade, Israelis were dominating the scene," said Sanjay Kothari, chairman of the Gem and Jewellery Export Promotion Council (GJEPC). "Indians learnt the know-how of fine cutting and polishing from Israel, which at one time had around 35,000 people engaged in the trade," Kothari told IANS. "Today India has slowly replaced Israel as the major centre for cutting and polishing diamonds in such a way that on any given day you can find at least a dozen Israelis buying goods from our centres in Gujarat or Mumbai." While the manufacturing base in Israel has dwindled over the years, India took a leap in the diamond trade in the 1990s to emerge as a strong competitor. Today an estimated 700,000 Indians are engaged in diamond trade, while in Israel it is down to a few thousand. Diamonds dominate the nearly $1.2 billion bilateral trade between the two countries. With centres in Mumbai, Surat and Bhavnagar, India emerged as the world leader in the export of small polished diamonds, while Tel Aviv has been dominating the global scene in large diamonds. But India is now beginning to show expertise in the entire range of diamonds. "We have in fact taken over our main competition and become suppliers of polished diamonds to Israel. If in the 1980s we were getting only small and lower quality diamonds, over the years we have been able to source better and larger diamonds for polishing and export," said Kothari. According to data compiled by the GJEPC, from imports worth $13 million in 1996, India sourced $386 million worth of rough diamonds from Israel during fiscal 2002-03 and exported $438.45 million worth of polished products back to Tel Aviv. The growth of diamond trade between the two countries has been pretty encouraging with a 33.8 percent growth during the January-June period from $392.3 million in 2002 to $525 million this year, according to official sources. "Deeply entrenched in the international diamond trading network, Israelis have emerged as marketing people, while Indians are focusing on manufacturing," said Kothari. Of India's $9.1 billion gems and jewellery exports in 2002-03, diamonds accounted for $7.1 billion, with the U.S. as the major market. In Israel's case too, the U.S. accounts for over 40 percent of diamond exports. "Despite competing in the same market, we have very strong ties with Israelis and are working very closely with them, as Israelis, and Jews (in particular), continue to dominate the scene globally," said Kothari.
Source: IANS
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