Rough diamond prices gained 4 - 5% between January – March period this year following resurgence in its demand from Indian cutting and processing industry. India, which claims to process 85% of the diamond mined across the world went slow towards the end of 2012 to avoid presumed losses on primarily two counts. However, going ahead prices are likely to set off the first quarter gain in May due to lower lean season demand from processing industry ahead of the monsoon season.

Major jewellery manufacturing centres in south India are facing acute shortage of gold ahead of the wedding season despite the industry’s claim to have seen a record import of the yellow metal last financial year.

Global economic activity is picking up, but the continuing crisis in the euro area is delaying a meaningful recovery,” the OECD said in its latest interim economic assessment. No wonder, in this atmosphere of cautiously creeping optimism the bulk of the price action across the commodities complex over the past week – truncated to four trading days – was sideways and range-bound

Gold futures on the MCX opened higher at Rs 29,452 per 10 gm on Monday against the previous close of Rs 29,394. It made a high of Rs 29,498 and a low of Rs 29,362. It was up by 0.19 per cent at Rs 29,450 at 12.55 pm.

Indian imports of rough goods may soar by 25 percent in the next fiscal year from around US$14.5 billion in the current year, as polished diamond exports to wealthier consumers rise and Indian exporters expand into new markets.

In the wake of high prices of natural diamonds in India, synthetic or lab-made diamonds are gaining popularity in India. It has captured around one per cent of the country's overall diamond jewellery market.

The Indian diamond industry is the heart of the world diamond industry today. Indian manufactures have helped the diamond world recover from the downturn of 2008 and give diamond it’s true value in its four decades of existence, said Dr. Saeed M. Al Shamsi, Foreign Affairs Minister for Int’l Organizations, Foreign & Humanitarian Aid, Studies & Research Special Envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Gold, diamonds and jewellery, it appears, are in the Government’s perspective among India’s many sacred cows. The result is a policy favouring producers and consumers of these items of luxury and stores of value.

India’s Gem & Jewellery Export Promotion Council is hosting a Banking Summit on “Emerging trends in Financing of the Indian Diamond Sector” with the senior officials of RBI and other leading banks who are

About a dozen small and medium-size diamond cutting and polishing plants in the Indian state of Gujarat, including in the diamond manufacturing center of Surat, will receive modern equipment aimed at raising their productivity.