Mozambique: Country ‘has met all requirements to export diamonds’ – government

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Mozambique: Country ‘has met all requirements to export diamonds’ – government

9:10 CAT | 11 Nov 2021

File photo: Lusa

Mozambique’s government said on Wednesday that it had met all internationally required conditions to be able to export diamonds, expressing confidence that the country would be admitted to the club of nations that can trade in the precious stones.

“What Mozambique did was to take the 2016 [international] report where all the recommendations it had to meet came and Mozambique met, in full, all the recommendations,” said Castro Elias, executive director of the Kimberley Process Management Unit, a Mozambique government institution.

Elias was speaking to journalists on the sidelines of the plenary meeting of the Kimberley Process, an entity set up by the United Nations to prevent the sale of so-called “blood diamonds” that are used to fund illegitimate wars.

The international body has been meeting in Moscow to, among other things, decide on whether to admit Mozambique into the legal diamond trade.

Elias said that the country had met the requirements of creating a state unit responsible for the process of assessment and certification of extraction, transport and export, a council responsible for supervision and properly equipped, including a member of civil society, a trading post and training of specialised staff.

The executive director of the Kimberley Process Management Unit said that accepting Mozambique into the international diamond trade would make it possible to activate 40 prospecting and research licences and 78 applications for licences, which are currently inoperative because the country is not yet authorised to trade in that type of product.

“The companies [in the diamond research and trade] are not doing anything, because Mozambique is not a member of the process and not being a member, they cannot export finished products,” he stressed.

The country’s entry into the international diamond trade, he added, would result in the creation of jobs and improve the social responsibility of companies, including construction of social infrastructure.

Elias noted that Mozambique has known diamond reserves in the provinces of Gaza, in the south, Manica and Tete, in the centre, and Niassa, in the north.

The country’s delegation to the Kimberley Process plenary meeting is headed by the minister of mineral resources and Energy, Max Tonela.

Source: Lusa