Botswana launches its own diamond trading company on Tuesday in a move designed to boost local business and create jobs for citizens of the world's top producer of these precious stones.
Thousands of Batswana are to become diamond sorters, valuers and marketers employed by the Diamond Trading Company Botswana (DTCB), described by diamond firm De Beers - a joint partner in the deal - as the most sophisticated of its kind in the world.
The creation of the DTCB, a joint venture between De Beers and the Botswana government, will end the practice of sending diamonds mined in Botswana to De Beers' London-based main Diamond Trading Company for sorting and marketing. Botswana is the world's largest producer of diamonds by value and by volume, yielding 34.3 million carats of the gemstones from its four open-cast mines in 2006 - worth some 17.4 billion pulas (2.6 billion dollars, 1.6 billion euros).
In anticipation of the official launch of the new trading company in the capital Gaborone Tuesday evening, De Beers has already started training locals in sorting, valuing and trading - skills formerly reserved for its London-based staff.
When completed by the end of next year, this would be one of the biggest-ever transfers of skills from the United Kingdom to Africa, claimed company literature.
The DTCB building, erected and equipped by De Beers at a cost of some 83 million dollars, has the capacity to process 45 million carats of diamonds a year. The premises boasts 39 diamond sorting machines, able to distinguish between gemstones in 29 different colours.
The DTCB expects to sell 375 million dollars worth of rough diamonds to its 16 Botswana-based diamond cutter clients this year, and 550 million dollars by the end of 2009. Last year, diamonds worth over 270 million dollars were supplied to local cutters, providing some 2,000 jobs, according to De Beers. "This is a dramatic increase on the 2006 figure of 135 million dollars and shows a rapid expansion of the local industry since the (Botswana) government and De Beers decided to create DTC Botswana and develop the down stream industry in May 2006," said a statement.
The DTCB has since the beginning of 2008 started taking over the operations of the Botswana Diamond Valuing Corporation. De Beers, which has been operating in Botswana since 1969, jointly owns local mining company Debswana with the government.
Debswana produces more than 30 million carats of diamonds a year, about 22 percent of the world's output. It employs some 6,300 workers, about 95 percent of them Batswana. The biggest of the Debswana mines, Jwaneng, about 160 kilometres (100 miles) south-west of Gaborone, is the world's richest by production value.
Rough diamonds are Botswana's largest industry, contributing 50 percent of public revenue, 33 percent of gross domestic product and 70 percent of foreign exchange earnings. The DTCB employs some 500 workers to date, a number it hopes to increase to over 3,000 next year. "This is a great day for Botswana and its nationals," DTCB director Brian McDonald said Tuesday, adding that workers moved into the new building last week.