Cape Town: The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) produced 13.5 million carats in 2016 compared with 15.8 million carats, a year earlier.
Data presented by the country’s Centre for Expertise, Appraisal and Certificate (CEEC) at the ongoing Investing in African Mining Indaba in Cape Town, showed that last year’s output was the lowest since 2007, the year it was readmitted to the Kimberley Process.
The highest output was in 2007 when the country produced 28.2 million carats followed by 21.3 million carats in 2008 despite the global economic downturn that affected the diamond industry.
CEEC data also revealed that DRC’s diamonds raked in $212.5 million in 2016 compared with $230 million, a year earlier.
DRC was the world’s third biggest diamond producer by volume and responsible for about 13 percent of global output, including industrial diamonds. However, the quality of the country’s diamonds was very poor as mining had been dominated by small scale miners.
It was also believed that some 700,000 artisanal miners operate in the DRC, encouraged to some extent by a law passed in 1981 that forced Miniere de Bakwange (MIBA), a state-owned diamond mining company, to open up the majority of its fields to artisanal diggers.
