By Anna Shilongo
WINDHOEK
The Jewellers Association of Namibia (JASSONA) has expressed concern about the quantity of rough gems being allocated to local diamond polishing companies.
Chairman of JASSONA, Andreas Herrle, says newcomers in the industry are favoured to the detriment of established entities that have invested heavily in training, branding and service to the retail jewellery sector over the past six years.
One such company, he said, is a Namibian-Belgian operation, Hard-Stone Processing (HSP). The company designed, produced and branded a Namibian diamond cut the “Namibia Sun” at enormous cost.
Herrle said HSP established the first and only tamper-proof diamond certification system for Namibian diamonds.
“It developed an excellent relationship with Namibian jewellery manufacturers and retailers, providing diamonds of all sizes, colours and shapes, and enabled Namibian retailers to become more independent of South African suppliers,” he said, adding that “for some jewellery retailers, this meant a growth in diamond sales of up to 25 percent”.
“Other existing diamond cutting operations have shown little interest in the past in supplying the Namibian market at all, giving little or no service to Namibian jewellery manufacturers,” he said.
Herrle reminded other companies trading in the industry that fast and efficient supply of Namibian-cut diamonds is of utmost importance to the local jewellery trade.
“Tourists for example would like to purchase a specific diamond and take it along immediately to their countries of origin but unfortunately, recently diamonds had to be sent to South Africa to be graded, resulting in increased costs to the customers,” he said.
“It has now come to light that Hard-Stone Processing will only receive a very small amount of raw material from DTC in London and not as promised earlier,” he said.
They are even required by NDTC to cut their links with their former suppliers of raw materials, effectively forcing them to close down.
“JASSONA regards these as extremely unfair treatment. It is disturbing in a sense that the HSP were the only company that designed and produced an own Namibian cut.
“Surprisingly it also appeared that some favoured companies have in fact not even started to establish a manufacturing plant yet. Two of them will only be producing in March next year,” he said.
He is also disappointed by the fact that favoured companies have received higher quotas than other established companies, even though they have not yet invested in the country.
“Some companies only exist on paper but yet they have received some of the larger allocations of rough diamonds.”
He strongly believes that if DTC goes ahead with its distribution policy, the reliable Namibian source of larger high value diamonds will be lost to the local jewellery trade.
“If this carries on then Namibian manufacturers and retailers will in future not be able to provide large gems, sourced, cut and polished in the country in time to make a sale, and worse of all Namibian jewellers will still not be able to sell a truly Namibian diamond with certificate and proof of origin, neither to tourists nor to local clients,” he said.