MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 12th November, 2019) The volume of the Central African Republic (CAR)'s illegal diamond mining exceeds 300,000 carats annually, and since sanctions against the country only aggravate the situation, Russia will seek full legalization of the CAR's diamond market as the 2020 chair of the Kimberley Process, Deputy Finance Minister Alexey Moiseev said in an interview with Sputnik.
According to Moiseev, CAR's diamond production used to amount to 350,000 carats per year before the sanctions were imposed in 2013. As the ban on diamond trade was afterwards partially lifted, the country is now divided into so -called green areas, from where export is allowed, and red areas in the CAR's north and east, controlled by anti-governmental armed groups, where the ban is still active.
"The official figure is now 39,000 carats. These are diamonds passing through 'green areas.' We wonder what has happened to the rest? We suspect that production still stands at the pre-sanctions volume. So, almost all this volume, or the difference between 350,000 and 39,000 carats, enters global markets as contraband and is not in any way accounted by the Kimberley Process, while criminals receive the secured profit," Moiseev said.
As the chair of the Kimberley Process in 2020, Russia will push for returning the CAR's diamond production to the legal field, the deputy finance minister stressed.
"The mechanism should be developed in cooperation with the car government and a working monitoring group," he added.
Moiseev criticized the diamond export ban as damaging poor people, for whom selling diamonds is the only way to earn their living.
"Secondly, these bans simply discredit the Kimberley Process, as a large amount of produced and circulating diamonds is barred from the legal market," Moiseev added, emphasizing that diamonds from the so-called red areas enter the market anyway.
The Kimberley Process is an international trade initiative, established in 2000 and aimed at regulating rough diamond trade through preventing conflict diamond flow. It unites over 80 countries across the globe. As the 2020 chair of the process, Russia will control the implementation of the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme, launched in 2003 to outline the trade rules.
