De Beers to return diamond sights to Botswana
De Beers is set to return sales activities back to Botswana, almost two years after the Covid-19 pandemic forced them to be held in cities including Antwerp and Dubai.
De Beers Executive Vice-President Diamond Trading, Paul Rowley revealed that the firm intends to return the sights back to the country’s capital in March. The Anglo American subsidiary had moved its pre-sale viewings, a marketing exercise to showcase its new batch of diamonds from Botswana in May 2020 when travel restrictions to curb the pandemic prevented its international customers from flying to the Southern African country.
Valuable foreign exchange
Customers from across the world fly ten times a year to participate in week-long diamond sales, known as sights, in Botswana, which accounts for 90% of the company’s total annual sales. The return is expected to bring in valuable foreign exchange to Botswana, which had lost out additional earnings from travel, hospitality and ancillary services, even though sales income still came to the country.
“From March, we are bringing back the sights to Gaborone and we look forward to meeting again as an industry after a long time. We will of course maintain some flexibility for some customers who will still not be able to come to Botswana,” said Paul Rowley.
The majority of diamond mining in the Botswana is done by Debswana, a company jointly held by De Beers and the Botswana government, which sells 75% of the diamonds mined to De Beers. The remaining 25% of the diamonds is sold to state-owned Okavango Diamond Company.
