(IDEX Online) - Sales of diamond jewelry in India are recovering and could reach 85 per cent of last year, despite the pandemic, says De Beers.A surge over the Diwali period, together with strong performances early in 2020 before COVID-19 hit, will largely make up for the second-quarter "washout", said De Beers India managing director Sachin Jain."We saw very high surge in number of consumers with pent-up demand where consumers came and bought," he told the Press Trust of India news agency."Due to government restrictions on travel and number of people allowed in gatherings, a lot of the overall budget for wedding is being utilised towards jewellery."He said the De Beers' brand Forevermark was expected to increase its number of retail outlets by 10, to 270, by the end of the year.He predicted diamond jewelry sales across all retailers for 2020 would be 70 to 85 per cent of 2019. Pic shows a Forevermark store