Namibia Desert Diamonds (Namdia) says it aims to polish diamonds, as it intends to move along the value chain as part of its strategic business plan within the next five years.
To achieve the aim, Namdia says it intends to transform the Namgem Diamond Manufacturing Company which it acquired from businessman Maurice Templesman, into a diamond polisher.
Namdia is currently tasked to conduct price discovery on behalf of the government and receives 15% of the total diamonds mined by Debmarine and Namdeb.
“In the medium to short-term, we also want to see a certain portion of our diamonds move downstream for value addition. We are not far from launching polished goods, in five years’ time, if our plans are realised, we should bring Namgen to life in terms of selling polished diamonds,” Namdia’s Chief Executive Officer Alisa Amupolo said.
She said there was also room to expand Namdia’s mandate and bring it closer to what the Namibia Diamond Trading Company (NDTC) is currently doing. To achieve that, it was imperative for Namdia to handle more diamonds.
This comes off the heels of a newly signed agreement between DeBeers and the Botswana government agreed to recently. Under the new joint mining agreement, Botswana will immediately get a 30% share of the rough stones extracted, up from 25%, and it will rise to 50% within a decade, De Beers and government officials said.
“The government needs to negotiate for more because what you have in terms of the mandate is price discovery, but post-2027, we have to move towards the element of what the Namibia Diamond Trading Company is doing,” she said.
