Head of Angola’s Endiama says diamond prices back to pre-crisis levels

Angolan National Diamond Company (Endiama) succeeded this year in achieving prices for diamonds that were seen before the world financial crisis, said board chairman, Carlos Sumbula.

“We have had problems, because the price of diamonds went down following the financial crisis,” he said in comments cited by the Angola press Agency. “Our first action was to tackle the price issue, since it worried us the most.

“We’ve established strategies that allowed us to make the prices go up. Currently, the price of diamonds has reached the level it was before the crisis,” he said.

As a result of higher revenues, the company is now able to resume the investments it was making before the crisis, and to restart operations at mines.

Renewed confidence in diamond price prompted the government to approve seven new projects, he said.

“At this moment the risk is gone, the product has a stable price, so this puts the company in condition to become involved in projects, like the building of houses and clinics in a sustainable way” he said.