N e w s

According to the "Russia's Economy: XXI century" magazine, "ALROSA" company is Russia's leading diamond producer as Russian State Treasury "GOKHRAN" has the right to export diamonds. However, then exclusive buyer of ALROSA's diamonds is still "De Beers", world's diamond monopolist, controlling 75% of global diamond sales.

According to the existing Trading Agreement between ALROSA and De Beers, ALROSA must annually sell to De Beers no less than $550 million worth of diamonds, but no more than 26% of De Beers' annual sales. Russia wanted to change several terms of the agreement for a long time now, due to its rather inconvenient conditions, and the negotiations on this topic had been going on continuously this year. Although the results are not yet completely clear, the both companies discuss not the three, but the five- year agreement. This is especially important to the recent price reduction worldwide.

Nowadays the Government recommends ALROSA to decrease the amount of diamonds sold to De Beers, and to increase direct export sales. This presumes the limit of somewhat $250 - 550 billion, although it is most likely to stay at the same level. Besides, it is likely that this time the Government will not provide its guarantees regarding the stated export quotes, due to that change in the range of diamonds sold through De Beers.