N e w s

From the year 2002 and for the nearest 5 years the State will be withdrawing from participation in the Agreement of ALROSA and De Beers. The companies will be free to take the decisions independently, however, the State will still keep the control.

Alexey Kudrin, the Deputy Chairman of the Government of Russian Federation noted: "This would be the main feature of the Agreement between Russian and South-African companies, which is planned to be signed in December".

At the moment Russia is world's second largest diamond miner and only fifth in diamond's prcessing. According to Vechiaslav Shtyrov, the head of ALROSA, The new scheme of ALROSA's relations with De Beers will allow to improve the current situation.

However, these issues have been up for a while. It is well known that the majority of Yakutian diamonds were processes in Israel, due to the lack of up-to-date equipment.