Surging global demand for high-quality diamonds from new markets such as China and India poses a supply challenge, a senior De Beers official said on June 04.
"I think that as demand from new markets like China, India and the Middle East and Russia grow, particularly for high-quality and larger stones ... the challenge will be finding the supply to meet the demand," Stephen Lussier, executive director of the De Beers Group, told Reuters.
Demand from these markets would more than offset expected lower sales in the United States, where a credit crisis has hit growth and knocked consumer spending.
"There is no doubt that the American consumer, which is half the world's consumption of diamond jewellery, is impacted and that will reduce sales," he said on the sidelines of a World Economic Forum meeting in Cape Town.
Sales in China, Russia and the Middle East were all "growing strongly". De Beers, in which Anglo American Plc holds a 45 percent stake, is the world's biggest diamond group.
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