Asia-Pacific

India inaugurates largest diamond trade center

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2010-10-17 20:23

MUMBAI -- India launches its largest diamond exchange on Sunday, in a bid to become a global diamond trader.

The new diamond exchange, built at a cost of more than 200 million USD, is called Bharat Diamond Bourse(BDB),spreading over 20 acres (about 8.09 hectares)in the northern business district in the Indian financial capital of Mumbai.

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It is a modern complex of eight towers of nine floors each, and could accommodate over 2000 trading members. India regards it as the world's largest diamond trade center.

India is the largest diamond cutting exporter, with less than a million employees in its diamond processing industry. India is also a major diamond manufacturing center, with 11 out of 12 diamonds in the world being cut, polished and processed in India, said BDB president Anoop Mehta.

The objective of the BDB is to promote India's diamonds and diamond jewellery, and take India from a manufacturing centre to a trading hub, Mehta said to the Indian media.

Mehta said India leads in every field of the world's diamond trade, which is one of the fastest growing sectors in the world, and the BDB will afford the best-equipped diamond trading infrastructure.

As it is fully operational in the next few months, it is expected to have an inflow of over twenty thousand people a day, including all top 400 India's diamond exporters.

Currently, India's diamond trade is conducted in southern Mumbai, with a turnover of about US$28 billion. By December, the diamond trade in southern Mumbai will shift to the BDB.