Why De Beers is now manufacturing diamonds
Is De Beers’ change of mind about never manufacturing diamonds a ploy to kill the fledgling market for cheaper synthetic rocks, or is it simply cashing in on the growing uses for industrial diamonds?
Growing bona fide diamonds inside a laboratory instead of retrieving the ancient stone from the earth sounds like cutting-edge technology but it actually dates back to 1953, when De Beers made the first lab-grown diamond. It went on to commercialise production for industrial use out of SA in the 1960s. In the early 2000s, others sought to make diamonds for the jewellery market. But making inroads into the traditional diamond business, in effect largely controlled by De Beers, has been a hard slog. Only recently, with backing from celebrities such as actor Leonardo DiCaprio, has the profile of man-made diamonds been raised. Then, three months ago De Beers shocked the industry by announcing that it too would make diamonds for jewellery and sell them direct to the public, at a much lower price, through its new jewellery line, Lightbox. The move has aroused much speculation about what De Beers, which once vowed it would never make lab-grown gems for the jewellery market, is really up to...
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