World Diamond Congress (Antwerp)
30 June 2006
document
Tel Aviv — The following speech was delivered by Nicky Oppenheimer, chairman of De Beers, at the gala dinner at the World Diamond Congress in Tel Aviv on Wednesday June 28, 2006:
Prime Minister, Your Excellencies, Distinguished Guests, Ladies & Gentlemen;
I am most grateful to the Presidents of the World Federation of Diamond Bourses and the International Diamond Manufacturers' Association, Shmuel Schnitzer and Jeffrey Fischer, for giving me this opportunity to address the World Diamond Congress.
May I, first of all, thank Shmuel on behalf of the whole diamond industry for his inspired leadership in challenging times and his highly successful tenure as President of the WFDB. We now welcome Ernie Blom as the new President of the World Federation - congratulations on your election, Ernie - and I know you will follow Shmuel in dedicated service both to the members and in the best interests of the industry as a whole.
We owe our great appreciation, as well, to the sponsors and organisers of this most splendid and successful 32nd World Diamond Congress, to Avi Paz, President of the Israel Diamond Exchange, to Moti Ganz, President of the Israel Diamond Manufacturers' Association, to Simcha Lustig, President of the Israel Diamond Institute, and to Yair Sahar, Chairman of the Organising Committee. Thank you all, too, for your participation in the important deliberations over the past few days - so vital to our industry's continuing success. It has also been a very real personal pleasure for me to meet and talk with so many members of Israel's vibrant and dynamic diamond industry.
Those conversations remind me that it is now too many years since I was last here in Israel, and I fear the passage of time might suggest some lack of interest on my part in the fortunes of the Israeli diamond industry or, indeed, of the State of Israel itself. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Israel, De Beers and the Oppenheimer family have had a long association ever since my great-uncle Otto first sold rough diamonds to Zvi Rosenberg and Ascher Daskal - the pioneers of the Israeli cutting industry, who had set up in Petah Tikva - back in 1938. Two years later in 1940 my grandfather, Sir Ernest Oppenheimer, agreed the first bulk sale of rough diamonds from London to Netanya. Diamond veterans in the audience will recall the visionary efforts of the then Mayor of Netanya, Oved Ben Ami, to create a diamond centre - a vision built on over the years since in Ramat Gan and Tel Aviv by many legendary stalwarts of the industry, such as Joseph Goldfinger and Moshe Schnitzer, to name but two.
One of the most remarkable aspects of the diamond industry in Israel has been the consistent and determined backing it has received from the beginning from the Government of Israel - support to an extent that few industries anywhere in the world have enjoyed. Diamond cutting here rapidly became - and remains - regarded by Government as a vital export development sector and highly significant to the economy. The contribution of the Israeli diamond industry to the country over the decades has been immense and one of which you can be rightly proud.
It is especially appropriate, therefore, to congratulate Aharon, Tzion and Benny Yerushalmi on their Outstanding Exporters Award for 2005. Yerushalmi Brothers was founded in 1974 by Aharon and Tzion, with younger brother Benny joining in 1982 and becoming CEO in 1996. Since then, the company has more than quadrupled its exports from Israel to over $145 million last year. The Yerushalmi Brothers became DTC Sightholders in 1998 and I am proud to count them amongst De Beers' customers.
De Beers, of course, is a company born in South Africa, and it is there that our corporate roots lie.
It is of Africa I wish to speak today. Not in any parochial way, nor indeed just as the source of so many of the diamonds cut here in Israel and elsewhere, but as a continent with which we in the diamond business in particular, and as members of the international community in general, are inextricably linked by ties of history and moral responsibility.
And so this is the right forum, indeed the correct and proper forum, for us to recognise our link has with Africa. Not just the important historical links, but real and immediate links that lie at the very heart of our industry's success and survival. These are not theoretical links, not links of high-minded liberal imaginings or those of mere academic interest. No, these links bind us - each one of us in the industry, you and me alike - to Africa in an absolute sense, for our very livelihoods, the future of our families, our companies and our communities depend upon them.
As one of Africa's major natural resources, diamonds are helping to transform Africa and the lives of its people. Through diamond exports and revenues, countries such as Botswana, Namibia and South Africa have been able to build a more prosperous future for their citizens and the same must apply to the rest of diamond producing Africa.
Africa's success stories must be celebrated. Diamonds are one of nature's most unique and fascinating products. Around the world they are symbols of love, status and self worth, and are used to mark life's great occasions and reward personal achievement. They should also be properly acknowledged for the great benefit they bring the nations, communities and people where they are found. 65% of the world's diamonds, worth $8.3 billion a year, are produced in African countries. Diamonds have and continue to contribute significantly to the growth of African economies, healthcare provision and education.
It is only through developing and maximising all its natural resources that a sustainable future for Africa and its people can be secured. Diamonds are a key component of the campaign to "make poverty history".
So what is our role in ensuring that diamonds continue to benefit the lands and people of their birth along with our own livelihoods and prosperity?
It is six years now since the World Federation of Diamond Bourses and the International Diamond Manufacturers' Association, at the 2000 World Diamond Congress in Antwerp, passed a joint resolution supporting the international campaign - initiated by South Africa - to eliminate the traffic in 'conflict diamonds' and implementing a series of practical measures for greater supervision, compliance and accountability within the diamond trade.
It is to the great credit to the leaders of the WFDB & IDMA that they recognised the very real threat to the integrity of our business posed by 'conflict diamonds' and established the World Diamond Council to represent the industry in the international arena. The WDC, so ably led by Eli Izhakoff, now represents the whole spectrum of our business from the producers through the various stages of cutting and polishing in the centres to the retailers in the markets of the world.
The WDC has, since its inception in 2000, been the public face of the diamond industry in the exhaustive negotiations with the United Nations, national governments and civil society in the creation of the Kimberley Process. This Process, mandated by the United Nations General Assembly and endorsed by the Security Council, is an international Agreement (between some 70 nations, NGOs representing over 100 advocacy groups and the WDC on behalf of us all) which, through its Certification Scheme, ensures that all rough diamond trading between participant countries is properly recorded, cross-checked and verifiable.
During the negotiations, in order to prevent onerous burdens being imposed upon us, the WDC put forward industry self-regulation measures to secure transactions of rough after the first point of import and all subsequent transactions in both loose polished and diamond jewellery. This involved a 'System of Warranties' (first suggested by Willy Nagel, who I can see in the audience) whereby we are all committed to a written statement on our invoices guaranteeing that the diamonds or diamond jewellery we are offering for sale are conflict free.
The governments of the Kimberley Process welcomed this proposal for self-regulation and the System of Warranties is enshrined in the final Agreement signed in 2003 and laid before the United Nations. The reputation of the industry in the international arena was much enhanced by this demonstration of its concern and commitment.
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