Diwali sales help Al Rosa

Diwali purchases by Indian diamantaires helped Russian mining giant Al Rosa’s sales move up in September from all-time low levels in July and August. However, on a year-on-year basis, Al Rosa’s September sales were still down 24 per cent due to the sluggish demand from Indian diamond industry.

Al Rosa Group in September 2019 sold rough and polished diamonds for a total value of $258.7 million against $338.7 million in September 2018 — a decline of 23.6 per cent.

Of this, rough diamond sales amounted to $256.5 million while polished diamond sales reached $ 2.2 million. In September 2018, Al Rosa had sold rough diamond worth to $331.6 million and polished diamond valued $7.1 million.

The group’s total diamond sales including both rough and polished diamonds for the nine months of JanuarySeptember 2019, amounted to $2.422 billion against $3.662 billion in the same period last year — a decline of 34 per cent.

However, on a sequential basis, sales were slightly better than that in July and August. For Al Rosa, sales this year reached an all-time low in July 2019 amounting to only $ 170.5 million. August sales of $ 181.1 million were only marginally higher than July sales.

“September sales were higher than sales in the three previous months,” said Al Rosa Deputy CEO Evgeny Agureev.

“It is partly due to the traditional autumn market revival after the holiday period and a slight increase in demand from Indian cutters and polishers ahead of the Diwali festival. The most noticeably increase (were) sales of small-size rough diamonds. In addition, some sales from the August session, which started later than usual, moved to September,” he said.

However, Al Rosa is not confident that the Indian market has made a full recovery. “The market is still facing low demand for rough diamonds, though there has been a gradual recovery for some categories of diamonds. We still believe that it will take some time to get a balance between supply and demand,” he added.

India’s gems and jewellery exports were down 6.2 per cent in September at $3.3 billion as shipments of cut and polished diamonds slumped. However, it saw some recovery from the August levels when exports had declined 14.44 per cent to $2.8 billion against the year-ago month.