Mine company purchased precious stones for price support
The South African diamond company De Beers is on its role as guardian
of the most sought-after gemstones in the world. 66 years controlled
the company through its monopoly sales organization, with the Central
Selling Organization (CSO) in London, nearly 65 percent of world trade
rough diamonds.
Now the company will function as the "buyer of last resort" to give
up. This, the Group announced in London. "Our strategic realignment is
one of the most important steps of development of the diamond industry
since the 30s," said Nicky Oppenheimer, chairman of De Beers.
Especially in the U.S. the group has repeatedly accused the monopoly
of the CSO. In future De Beers as a "supplier of choice" (supplier of
choice) act. This means that De Beers stopped buying up the excess
supply of rough diamonds on the market and hoarding in order to
stabilize the diamond price.
Now the mining company is trying to increase the demand for diamonds
by a massive marketing campaign through its subsidiary Diamond Trading
Company (DTC). The group plans to focus on the mining activities and
try to reduce its stock of rough diamonds. Late last year, after all,
this amounted to 3.9 billion dollars (8.2 billion DM / Euro 4.2
billion).
"We must act in a customer-oriented," Oppenheimer founded the step.
The new concept will De Beers for the challenges of the 21st Century
make.
Gary Ralfe, managing director of De Beers, pointed to the "enormous
untapped potential" back. The luxury goods market is growing annually
by ten percent. The participants in this sector usually give from six
to ten percent of their revenues on marketing. In contrast, the
diamond industry investing has been little more than one percent in
marketing.
At the same time, De Beers aims to introduce ethical standards. De
Beers' future demands of its 125 large customers, a written
certification that they comply with "best practice principles". This
means that the customers may not trade in diamonds that originate from
these war zones.
