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Diamonds Cut Deep.
Today's Financial Times reports that some of the world's largest diamond manufacturers have embarked on a second wave of development in China to benefit from Asia's growing consumer markets.
Leo Schachter Diamonds, one of the largest diversified, privately held diamond companies, with $650 million in annual sales, last week opened a manufacturing operation in China. It is the first U.S. company to establish a diamond cutting factory in China.
The company is one of De Beers' largest sightholders. The new factory premises has dormitories, dining facilities, a computer room, sports facilities, a shop and a library. There is room for 800 recruits to learn to saw, cut and polish diamonds of all sizes and colors. Training includes the use of laser-driven computer systems for precision cutting.
Since starting production in May in 2005, the plant accounts for 50 percent of Leo Schachter Diamonds' total diamond production by volume. The rest is produced in Botswana and South Africa. China offers manufacturers cheap labor, a skilled and productive workforce and a government that favors business.
About 20 percent of the company's diamond sales to jewelry chains and stores are generated in the Far East. Europe accounts for 15 percent and the U.S. accounts for 65 percent, said Elliot Tannenbaum, CEO of Leo Schachter Diamonds. About 10-million couples marry in China each year. In 2004, jewelry sales value reached $14.5 billion. By 2010, sales could amount to $22 billion, which would make China the world's top jewelry market, says Flanders Investment in Hong Kong.
At least 10 diamond traders from India have set up manufacturing operations in China, lured by the country's jewelry-design skills and operational efficiencies. China has a relatively high production capacity with a highly skilled workforce.
China's diamond manufacturing dates back to the 1970s, when there were a few diamond-cutting plants with about 500 workers. The number has grown since the 1990s, propelling the country to number two worldwide in diamond cutting volume and the number of workers, says the Flanders Investment report.
China has been a signatory to the Kimberley Process since 2003, and it has also invested significant effort in regulating its diamond sector by creating the Shanghai Diamond Exchange. It has cut its diamond import tariff to zero.
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