Namibia still negotiating new diamond sales deal

Published Oct 22, 2014

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Felix Njini Windhoek

NAMIBIA had yet to reach a new diamond-sales agreement with Anglo American’s De Beers unit, in which the country would seek to be able to sell some gems separately, a government official said on Monday.

“We are still negotiating, we hope an agreement would be reached but we don’t know when,” mines ministry commissioner for diamond affairs Kennedy Hamutenya, who also leads the negotiating team, said.

“We can’t say we want to be finished by this specific period as that depends on how the issues are dealt with,” he said.

Namibia and De Beers, equal shareholders in Namdeb Diamond, are working out a sales accord to replace a 2007 agreement that allowed Anglo to sell the stones through Diamond Trading, the trading arm of De Beers, until the end of last year. This was extended until June.

The country, which is the world’s largest producer of marine diamonds, wanted to sell some of the stones separately from De Beers, Mines Minister Isak Katali said in July.

“When we started these negotiations, there was never a shelf life, it’s unhelpful to put timelines and we can’t comment until the process is concluded,” Daniel Kali, De Beers Namibia country manager, said on Monday.

Namdeb’s production rose 6 percent to 1.76 million carats last year, with two-thirds of that coming from marine mining operations.

“If we don’t agree, we will keep on talking until we have a win-win agreement,” Hamutenya said. – Bloomberg

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