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Ahmed Bin Sulayem, Kimberley Process Chair, closed the final day of this week’s KP Intersessional, which was attended by over 200 delegates from around the world at Atlantis, The Palm.
The UAE has this year been selected as the first and only Arab country to Chair the Kimberley Process, an international group tasked with regulating the global diamond trade. Established in 2003 by the United Nations, 81 participating countries seek to ensure that unregulated rough diamonds do not enter the legitimate diamond market as a means to finance conflict. Over the past 13 years, this mandate has fostered greater transparency in the industry by implementing a rigorous certification scheme.
In his closing remarks, Ahmed Bin Sulayem, KP Chair, commented on some of the significant progress taking place over the first six months of the year: “I am particularly happy that the CAR Monitoring Team has by and large completed its verification and due diligence on the first shipment of the compliant zone of Berberati in the Central African Republic. The Working Group of Monitoring took good notice of the Team's hard work and we expect to have full clearance in the next few days. This will be a great relief for the people of this country as well as a first step towards the resumption of further exports.”
“I also wish Venezuela well on its return KP family. The discussions are moving forward and I am confident we will see the country re-admitted to full KP membership within the near future,” Bin Sulayem added.
Following a successful special forum on rough diamond valuation, The KP Chair also announced that two further workshops will be held during the course of the year. More information about timing and location will be made available in due course.
“We will continue to seek guidance and leverage the extensive knowledge of the OECD in this matter, and also include experts from the diamond industry, professional valuators, the large mining corporations, auction and tender houses and representatives from the different leading price lists, with the goal to ultimately establish best practice principles which could be included in the KP framework.”, Bin Sulayem concluded.
The UAE KP Chair also briefly discussed how the UAE is currently pursuing a local pilot project to evaluate how the KP can benefit from using Blockchain technology to better coordinate flow of diamond-related data while improving traceability, transparency and streamlining the business process across the supply chain.
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