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Belgium aiding Ivory Coast’s return
The Antwerp World Diamond Centre (AWDC) recently completed a training program for three senior officials from the government of the Ivory Coast, which saw the decade-long ban on its diamond trade lifted earlier this year.
Antwerp--The Antwerp World Diamond Centre (AWDC) recently completed a
training program for three senior officials from the government of the
Ivory Coast, which was cleared to reenter the diamond trade earlier this
year.
Belgium’s Federal Public Services (FPS) Foreign Affairs
funded the eight-week program, with the hopes of expediting the Ivory
Coast’s reentry into the trade.
The United Nations banned the
Ivory Coast from trading in diamonds in 2003 following the country’s
civil war. It was the only country in the world with a UN-imposed ban on
trading diamonds, and it remained in place until this past spring.
The UN Security Council opted to lift the decade-long ban in April after the members of the Kimberley Process agreed at their plenary meeting in November 2013 that the Ivory Coast was KP compliant.
The AWDC said it hopes that the training will ensure the country’s strict adherence to the conditions of the KP.
“The
sanctions were put in place because the risk of conflict diamonds
entering the regular circuit would have been too great otherwise,” said
AWDC spokeswoman Margaux Donckier. “As Belgium has been one of the
driving forces behind the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme since
the very beginning, Ivory Coast has appealed to us to help them set up a
supervisory body.”
According to the AWDC, Ivory Coast has the
potential to produce up to 200,000 carats of rough diamonds annually in
the years ahead, representing a value of $25 million.
Ivory
Coast plans to launch a diamond trade control panel on Jan. 1, and the
U.N. will publish an assessment report every six months. In addition,
the KP’s own control panel will visit Ivory Coast to monitor conditions,
and to formulate recommendations if necessary.
The AWDC is the coordinating body and the official representative of the Antwerp diamond community.
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