JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – The World Federation of Diamond Bourses (WFDB), together with seven other major diamond industry umbrella organisations, has announced that it is “regretfully” withdrawing its participation in the upcoming World Diamond Council (WDC) annual general meeting, on October 28, in Antwerp, Belgium.
The WFDB; the Gem & Jewellery Export Promotion Council of India; the Federation of Belgian Diamond Bourses; the Bharat Diamond Bourse; the Israel Diamond Exchange; the Israel Diamond Institute; the Dubai Diamond Exchange and the World Jewellery Confederation had signed and sent a joint letter to the WDC announcing that they had resolved “not to participate in the meeting until the direction that [the current] WDC leadership intended to take was satisfactorily explained”.
The signatories expressed their disappointment at the actions that the WDC had taken during the course of the past few months and leading up to the Antwerp meeting, including but not limited to, a “biased survey” that they claimed was conducted without consulting 98% of the industry.
While emphasising that the signatories remained “committed to the spirit and the enforcement of the Kimberley Process Scheme” and arguing that their letter should not be construed to be an attempt to not comply or avoid this scheme, they declared that they would not support any entity under the parentage of the WFDB that had appeared to take arbitrary decisions in an untransparent way.
“It is, therefore, the sincerest wish of the signatories to develop and foster a fruitful and meaningful relationship with the WDC in the future,” the parties said in a statement on Monday.