Have you ever thought about where the best diamond rings come from? You would be surprised by how far that shiny piece of rock has come. As globalization evolves by the second, our world has to keep up with the latest revolutions on social, cultural, and economic dynamics. The increasing conflicts in the lab-grown diamond market, provide a serious shifting in the diamond industry.

Trading, branding, and extraction have changed all the prospect market regarding this production. In this article, we’ll show you how much this industry has evolved all over the years, and especially… where it is evolving too.

Brief History

Studies show that Diamond Industry has evolved firstly in India, just before they start getting popular in Europe, along the 1400’s century. Back then, India had a lot of wealthy classes but due to the explorations by foreign countries, their exotic resources turned to merchandise all across the globe, diamonds included.

Time passed, and with the Diamond resources drained out of India’s earth surface supplies, Brazil became the latest client in the market, during the 1800s, and dominated the business until the mid-1900s. Once it reached its potential, the French Revolution had a serious impact all over the globe, and demanded certain transformations in the political distribution of wealth. There’s where Africa stepped in to become the first world premium client.

By the time the British government continued to outgrow its colonies, Cecil Rhodes, a British entrepreneur, controlled more than 90 percent of Diamond Mines in Africa.  As diamond sources started to disappear from the surface, moving deep further underground, Diamond Industry forced the development to be far more efficient in the mining techniques and extracting process, using most of the human resources, and by that.I mean slaves.

The marketing strategies also needed to change, which led to significant advances in the cutting and polishing process. It reinforced the appearance in the finishing process, while it reduced the costs and increased the production. By the 1970s, the world’s greatest diamond production-controlled Zaire, South Africa, and the Soviet Union.

As the world economy floated widely across each corner of the globe, Diamond Industry achieved its power in the 1900s. The recent technology industry factories brought new sources of extraction and increased the growth of cutting centers. The supply chain has evolved into four phases:

• Mine Production
• Rough Diamond Distribution
• Preparation
• Retailing

This last phase suffered some changes due to the increased supply and demand factor:

• Industrial Diamond – Natural material used in the world wide range manufacture.
• Jewelry- The rough diamond extraction, cut especially for gemstones.
• Investment Diamonds- high-quality material gemstones, especially

purchased for investment.

Modern Ages

The Diamond Market continued to outgrow in the 2000s, due to the popularity of the jewelry sect, the rough diamond market turned out to be the world’s greatest investment. Easy to say…Diamonds are a girl’s best friends. It was the beginning of the late and prosperous 20s century, the sales increased especially in the U.S during the holidays.

However, an unexpected turn of events in the trade market transformed the Diamond Industry completely. The great recession and the tragedy of 9/11, threatened the diamond demand business.

The steady market forced the Diamond Industry to adapt its strategies to new realities, restructuring its entire Industry Chain, starting with its Chain Value and Distribution sector. From the mine to the consumer, Diamond goes from one hand to another, it gets hard to trade its origin. Such poor document “data”, its seriously badly reported due to the development characteristics of their “home country”, changes were made, especially by De Beers company to certificate and monitor the diamond trade flow. To guarantee each and every diamond is extracted, exported to cutting, traded, and consumed by prospering buying nations and private clients.

Conflicts

As the expansion begins to grow, most of the Diamond Industry supplies come for countries built-in serious “war zones”, such as Congo, Angola, or Sierra Leona. It became difficult for the monopoly to control the interests of the greatest “local warlords’ ‘, that figured a way out into the Diamond business through corruption. The image of the continuous warfare in Africa and the abuse of children to maintain the business violently growing had huge impacts on the Industry. The diamond conflict has brought society and the media’s attention. Sales crashed.

Nations agreed on establishing certain standards and negotiations for the certification of the rough diamonds extraction – ‘The Kimberley Process’ in 2001. Which established:

• A Kimberley Process Certificate is accompanying each and every rough diamond extracted and imported, with a ‘sale’s mark of the country of origin and its buyer, with its carat weight and value.
• Nonparticipants can’t enter the shipment.
• An Internal System Control to guarantee the import and the exportation of rough diamonds from its territory, safely.
• Proportional penalties, laws, and regulations to every transgression.

These long negotiation terms have decreased the conflicts in South Africa but the terrorist continues to participate in most of the out-law business that involves this industry until the current days.

Recent Developments

After the mid-2000s, the Diamond Industry continues to decrease by the second. Although Jewelry retailers optimized their inventory, slower sales and stretched capital continued to damage the sector’s profitability. Most jewelry companies transformed their productions from the imported rough-diamond material to industrial gems, less glamorous but cheaper. Diamond producers have to follow serious restricted measures for extraction and trading strategies, due to the social and environmental impacts of this industry. The prices are increasing so the consumers will certainly put their money into other types of jewelry. Social and cultural ways of seeing diamonds have seriously contributed to this surprising turn of events.

‘Diamonds aren’t a girl’s best friend… So they say’

The splendor didn’t change, but diamonds aren’t that appreciated as they once were by the higher society. They are now exchanged by ‘iPhones’, ‘iPads’, or expensive cars. The branding of the market has not been doing its job, therefore not keeping up with the latest market strategies. Most of the economy of ‘in-development-countries’ around the globe comes from the Diamond Market.

However, they are still struggling with the Diamond terrorism business, and the great nations haven’t been smart enough to maintain this industry flowing in a healthy, prosperous environment. Diamond Industry can be a ‘two-way-street’ for both edges.

Feedback: Some minor mistakes, but overall, good job.