There was an interesting statement from Alrosa president’s Sergey Vybornov in his recent interview with Rapaport …
Diamond items shouldn’t be sold at a price of $50 to $100. That causes consumers to lose their trust in diamonds. Such prices degrade the image of diamonds as an eternal value. How can a symbol of love be worth $100?
Vybornov has said such things before. He then adds that “one of the goals of the [St. Petersburg] marketing initiative that we are starting, along with De Beers and other companies, is to raise the value of diamonds in people’s minds.” He later says the St. Petersburg initiative, which is meant to develop a (much-needed) industry-wide generic marketing campaign, is moving along. I’ve heard that as well. However, considering one of the companies involved in that initiative is Rio Tinto, whose Argyle mine produces plenty of diamonds that appear in low-end diamond jewelry, that seems like a pretty major difference of opinion among the forces behind it.
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