RAPAPORT... New International Diamond Laboratories® (IDL) certification services will be available to the Indian diamond community beginning in September 2007. In announcing the new service on April 27, 2007, the Dubai Multi Commodities Centre (DMCC) said that IDL had been included in the Annual Supplement of the Foreign Trade Policy of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry of India, allowing it to ship diamonds between Mumbai and Dubai for certification.
Peter Meeus, chief executive officer (CEO) of IDL, says that, with the September start-up, “IDL will simultaneously open offices in Dubai, Antwerp and Mumbai. With the IDL cert, we will try to offer our customers in Antwerp and Mumbai a tool aimed at facilitating their sales in the Middle East. If what we are expecting happens with the expansion, there will be no choice but to open up in other centers, also. We believe we should go where the market drives us. But we must first get started before dreaming ahead.”
Ahmed bin Sulayem, chief operating officer (COO) of the DMCC and a member of the IDL board of directors, was pleased with the announcement and said “We very much welcome the government decision enabling IDL to service the Indian diamond community. It underlines the importance of the trade between India and the Middle East and the belief of the market in a new, global and high-quality diamond certification service.”
NOT JUST ANOTHER LABAt the Mines to Market Conference hosted by the Gem & Jewelry Export Promotion Council (GJEPC) and held in India April 27, Meeus explained that “IDL will not be just another diamond lab. IDL will stand for a scientific approach to diamond grading, so that it can offer the much-needed standardization of grades. Diamond grading is to be brought from an art to a science. IDL is committed to offering a level of consistency the diamond market has not yet seen. We will offer consistency through technology. Objectivity will be our leading principle. Consistency is at the heart of what we do. Science is the way to achieve this.”
When asked about the technology used to reach that level of consistency, Meeus said that “I can tell you this: When we started the project, the challenge was to answer more than the existing needs on the market. We wanted to go further and rethink certification from scratch. We decided to look at every single aspect of certification with a view to optimizing it. The most striking thing in diamond grading is that the current systems remain very unpredictable and thus inconsistent. IDL wants to offer a scientific approach to diamond grading in order to achieve standardization of grades. This sounds a bit ambitious but through some ground-breaking technology, we believe we can offer this new level of consistency to the market.”
The IDL certification announcement coincides with the moves by the Diamond High Council (HRD) to initiate a range of similar moves, according to Freddy Hanard, CEO of the Antwerp World Diamond Centre (AWDC). “As AWDC — and thus the HRD lab – with our 26 staff members dedicated entirely to research, we offer a very well-established brand, known worldwide as extremely stable. And we are doing everything necessary to remain at that level of excellence. We’re on the verge of initiating a new approach to doing business: We’re going to market our products ourselves. Previously, commercialization and marketing of our products were carried out by our clients, but, as of now, this is going to change. We’re going to start [business-to-consumer] B-to-C relationships as well, at least as far as marketing is concerned. The internationalization process that AWDC has initiated is fully planned and structured — not to mention that we’ve scheduled the opening of a drop-off point in Israel and a representative office in Mumbai.”
“I don’t see this as a competition or a race,” said Meeus, adding that “The first reactions from a group of top sightholders in Antwerp and Mumbai on the new product presentation were very enthusiastic. The Middle East is a fantastic region with an enormous underexploited potential for diamond sales. Countries like Saudi Arabia that use Dubai as a hub will offer all traders who come here double-digit growth in their sales. Our ambition is to help in that process. If we can add, through our technology, solutions from which the market could benefit, that would even be better. I assume that is the ambition of every lab.”
DOUBTFUL
The Antwerp market, as well as some India-based diamantaires, has reacted with skepticism to the initiative of Dubai, arguing that people will prefer to call upon internationally recognized certs, rather than the new IDL certs, except perhaps for the Middle East. That theory is exactly in line with the objectives the IDL has set for itself. “The Middle East will be our first target,” said Meeus. “This market is good for close to $3 billion dollars in annual sales. But the whole subIndian continent is on the verge of an expansion in the years to come. I believe the demand for certificates will increase substantially in the future for two reasons. First, there is the population growth in India and China that, within ten years, will equal the existing population in the so-called ‘Old World’ of Europe and the U.S. To illustrate, consider that every year 10 million Chinese get married. The second reason certificate demand will increase is the consumer becoming more demanding. Today, 80 percent of stones are sold without a cert. When I was at HRD, I saw demand for certs growing almost 400 percent from 59,000 stones in 1999 to 200,000 in 2005. The growth will be pushed further by the arrival of synthetics in the market but also in the lower colors and the lower purities — and especially in the smaller goods — the potential is very big.”
In marketing its new certification services, IDL will be assisted by Dr. David Rutledge, CEO of the DMCC, who will head its board of directors and by new members Peter Gross, who previously served as head of the International Diamond & Jewellery Group of ABN AMRO, and Ian White, who served in several positions at the Diamond Trading Company (DTC) before taking on the responsibility as DTC’s sales director.
Article from the Rapaport Magazine - June 2007. To subscribe click here.