Dubai Exchange to Hold First Lab-Grown Tender

RAPAPORT... The Dubai Multi Commodities Centre (DMCC) will offer rough lab-grown diamonds at tender for the first time, as it aims to diversify the emirate's trade. The sale, which will be run by Hong Kong-based diamondtrading firm Tony's Auction World, will feature 50,000 carats of synthetic stones created using chemical vapor deposition (CVD). The tender will take place in the Almas Tower at the Dubai Diamond Exchange (DDE) from May 11 to 13. The initiative will "drive new trade flows through Dubai," DMCC executive chairman and CEO, Ahmed Bin Sulayem, said last week. "Our commitment to facilitating open and transparent tradeis unwavering, as is our support for the natural-diamond industry," Bin Sulayem noted. "Ensuring theintegrity of the sales process is of paramount importance, and that is whylab-grown-diamond tenders will only take place on the DDE trading floor whenboth the seller and buyer can clearly evidence that the disclosure, detectionand differentiation process has been adhered to." To that end, all participants must provide evidence prior to taking part in the sale that they will store and sell lab-grown diamonds separately from natural diamonds, the DMCC noted. "Lab-grown diamonds offer a different value proposition tonatural diamonds, and trading them in a regulated and open platform increasesthe transparency and legitimacy of the sales process," explained Rushabh Mehta,CEO of Tony's Auction World. "This is a major milestone, and testament to boththe growing prominence of lab-grown diamonds and their increasing marketappeal." Image: DMCC's Almas Tower. (Dubai Multi Commodities Centre)