After a strong start to the new year in January, Antwerp’s diamond trade slowed in February 2018 with imports and exports of both rough and polished registering single digit declines in value terms during the month, according to figures released by the Antwerp World Diamond Centre (AWDC) yesterday.
During February 2018, the Antwerp centre exported over 9.57 million carats of rough at a value of US$ 1.02 billion, a year-on-year decline of 21.08% in terms of volume, and of 5.99% in value terms. Rough imports too dropped 28.35% in volume terms and 4.6% in value terms – with 6.84 mn carats of rough being imported at US$ 866.3 million as compared to a year earlier.
Trade in polished also slowed. In February 2018, the Antwerp centre exported 503,889 cts of polished at a value of US$ 1.28 bn, a drop of 5.09% in volume terms, and of 5.73% in value terms year-on-year. During this period, the centre imported 391,523 cts of polished at a value of US$ 719 mn, registering a 8.03% rise in volume terms but a 2.78% drop in value terms as compared to February 2017.
During the first two months of 2018, rough exports totalled 20.51 mn cts at US$ 2.04 bn, showing a decrease of 8.61% in volume terms and of 3.76% in value terms, while rough imports of 15.8 mn cts at US$ 1.96 bn were down 8.6% y-o-y in volume terms but showed a rise of 5.04% in value terms.
Polished exports during the Jan-Feb 2018 period stood at 855,543 cts at US$ 2.09 bn, up 4.16% in volume and 5.26% in value, and polished imports of 1,002,446 cts at US$ 1.67 bn, was also up 15.61% in volume and 3.32% in value terms y-o-y.
News Source : gjepc.org
Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and TJM Media Pvt Ltd. is not responsible for any errors in the same.
