Editor’s Note
This article examines the complex pressures facing the diamond industry, juxtaposing a moment of geological triumph—the discovery of a historic gem—with the stark economic realities of market downturns and sovereign debt challenges.
Diamonds being analyzed at the iTraceiT company in Antwerp, Belgium, on November 21, 2023. Mokgweetsi Masisi, then President of Botswana, displays a broad smile on August 22, 2024. The enormous diamond recently extracted from the Karowe mine, which just fits in his hand, is the second largest in the world, weighing no less than 2,492 carats, behind the Cullinan, whose stones adorn the famous British Crown Jewels. Beyond this title of glory, this remarkable stone had renewed hope for players in the natural diamond market. The optimism was short-lived, as Botswana, the world’s second-largest diamond producer behind Russia, saw its debt rating downgraded to “BBB” by the American agency S&P on September 12, highlighting the “decline in diamond revenues.”
In addition to this unfavorable economic climate, Botswana, where a quarter of the gross domestic product is linked to the diamond industry, faces, like other producers, the increasingly fierce competition from synthetic diamonds. Produced in factories or laboratories using different processes, these “lab-grown diamonds” (LGD) are composed of pure carbon. They have the same physical and optical characteristics as natural diamonds, from which they can only be distinguished using a spectrometer. But, sold at a price varying between 10% and 50% of the price of a stone extracted from a mine depending on size, they are now establishing themselves in the jewelry market.