The Gemological Institute of America released the first image of one of the new GIA synthetic diamond reports. The report image is posted on GIA’s Web site, www.gia.edu.

As previously announced, GIA will begin accepting synthetic diamonds for grading on Jan. 1, 2007, using the new report format unveiled today.

GIA Chairman Ralph Destino said that this report is a culmination of a process started last June when he announced to the World Federation of Diamond Bourses at its Tel Aviv congress that GIA intended to begin the grading of these stones. At that gathering, Destino told the delegates that GIA’s public-benefit mission mandated that the Institute “describe and report on synthetics so that consumers can rely on full and proper disclosure” when they enter the diamond marketplace. The WFDB subsequently voted overwhelmingly that synthetics should indeed be graded and concurred with Destino’s view that “full disclosure can only enhance consumer confidence.”

In developing the grading document, Destino noted that, “We listened carefully to the concerns of leaders in both the natural diamond and laboratory-grown diamond industries, and we were as sensitive as we could be to those concerns. In the end, however, our final decisions were shaped by our 75-year commitment to our fundamental constituency which, as always, is the public at large.”

JCK