Editor’s Note
This article highlights a significant contraction in Antwerp’s diamond trade, with rough diamond volumes falling sharply. While the overall market faces challenges, the sector’s enduring resilience offers a note of cautious optimism for the future.
The trade in rough diamonds in Antwerp shrank last year to a third of what it was in 2022, according to Gazet van Antwerpen. Total trade, including rough and polished diamonds, fell by 22.8 per cent in a year. However, the sector remains hopeful.
Trade fell for both exports and imports from around 9 billion dollars in the first 11 months of 2022 to 3 billion in the first 11 months of 2025. For polished diamonds, trade fell from 10 to 6 billion dollars, and several Antwerp companies have recently been declared bankrupt.
The figures also mean Antwerp is no longer the world’s most important trading centre. Centres such as Dubai and Mumbai do not regularly publish their figures. However, because they trade in synthetic diamonds, unlike Antwerp, their volume is much greater.
Natural diamonds were popular between 1950 and 2000, he explains, but the younger generation is less interested in traditional stones from a mine.
Antwerp is also struggling with the European ban on trading Russian diamonds, implemented following the invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Nevertheless, the situation is not hopeless, according to Ine Tassignon, spokesperson for the Antwerp World Diamond Centre, which represents the local sector. She points out that the decline has slowed in recent months, and trade last month was 5 per cent higher than in December 2024.
Among the reasons for optimism are the zero tariffs on diamonds exported from Antwerp to the US, compared to 50 per cent for Indian diamonds, and a fall in the price of synthetic gems due to mass production.