Moscow — Russia’s Alrosa, the world’s largest diamond producer by output, plans to boost revenue from selling rare, coloured stones where demand is stable, although it is a niche business. Nature gives fancy colours to about one in every 10,000 rough diamonds of gem quality that are mined around the world. The stones — which can be blue, pink or green — form a special asset class, relying on a consumer passion for the exotic and unusual. This also means they are less affected by other factors driving supply and demand in the main diamond market. The global market for polished coloured diamonds is now dominated by Rio Tinto and Anglo American’s De Beers. But state-controlled Alrosa aims to compete. "We hope that ... Alrosa will become one of the global leaders in sales of polished coloured diamonds," said Evgeny Agureev, head of Alrosa sales division. He said the stones would come straight from the producer, ensuring "transparent origin" in an industry that has been working hard to p...
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