In March, India more than doubled its purchases of diamonds from Russia on an annual basis, according to data from the Ministry of Industry and the commerce of the republic. Thus, in March, India's diamond import from Russia in annual terms increased 2.3 times to 728,000 carats.
At the same time, New Delhi increased its imports of stones from Canada to 354,000 carats from just 210 carats in March last year. Diamond imports from China also jumped - 2.6 times, to 122,000 carats, and supplies from Hong Kong increased by 15%.
But even this growth did not help offset the missed deliveries from Belgium - its exports to India fell by 2 million carats to 2.1 million and from the UAE by 900,000 carats to 7.3 million carats. Stone imports from the US (3.7 times, to 155,000 carats), Israel (1.8 times, to 110,000 carats), Botswana (-12%, to 214,000 carats) and South Africa (-2%, to 110 000 carats) also decreased by 255,000 carats.
As a result, India's total diamond imports fell to 12.15 million carats from 14.7 million a year earlier.
From March 1, Western countries began to gradually limit the import of Russian diamonds processed in third countries. Several Western media outlets then circulated a letter sent to the Antwerp International Diamond Center (AWDC) by businessmen involved in the diamond trade. In it, they highlighted the long and costly delays they are already experiencing, as well as the negative impact of the restrictions on all their operations, and called for a review of the new procedures “due to the threat of disruption to Antwerp's centuries-old diamond trade.
In response, the regulator acknowledged that the sanctions had led to disruptions in supplies to the world's largest diamond trading center in Antwerp, Belgium, due to new requirements for declaring and clearing gems.