Zimbabwe to Hold First Diamond Sale in a Year

RAPAPORT... Zimbabwe Consolidated Diamond Company (ZCDC) will auction 1.56 million carats of diamonds over the next two months, its firstsales in a year, Reuters reported Thursday. The state-owned miner last held a sale in March 2017, before haltingtrading while it restructured. The auctions - which will take place in Marchand April -will come from the stockpiles ZCDC has accrued since then. The company plans touse this as a starting point, after which it will hold regular sales. "Thereafter, from current production, [the] governmentanticipates ZCDC to have regular tenders throughout 2018," Reutersquoted Mines Minister Winston Chitando as saying. A recent ZCDC test sale garnered $829,000, with buyersfrom Belgium, Dubai, Botswana and South Africa among the attendees, Chitandocontinued. The government of Zimbabwe set up the ZCDC in December 2015,after which it declined to renew the mining licenses of seven companies thatpreviously operated at the site, according to a September report by GlobalWitness, a non-profit organization. In December, the Zimbabwe government announced plans to relax its indigenization law, which statesthat foreign companies operating in the country must be majority-owned by localblack people. However, the rules will still apply to the diamond and platinum industries.