Following the positive response to the second edition of the Bharat Diamond Week, which was held in the Bharat Diamond Bourse premises in Mumbai from Oct 8-10, 2018, the organisers have announced that the event will henceforth take place twice a year, in April and October.

Announcing the dates for the 2019 shows, Anoop Mehta, President BDB said, “The next show will take place from April 1-3, 2019, while the second fair next year will be held from October 14 to 16.”

The three-day event, which saw participation of 120 companies dealing in polished diamonds, with large participation from Small and Medium Enterprises, was inaugurated on Monday by Andrei Zhiltsov, Consul General of the Russian Federation in Mumbai, and Evgeny Agureev, Director of ALROSA's United Selling Organisation.

Speaking at the inaugural, Zhiltsov said: "It is a great honour to be here at the centre of the global diamond industry. Up to 90% of polished diamonds in the world originate in India. This country was the first to cut and polish diamonds, and India is by far the world's largest cutting and polishing centre. In addition, Russia is the largest producer of rough diamonds, and I would say that our countries are therefore made for each other."

Agureev also congratulated the BDB on holding its second polished diamond fair: "We have an excellent relationship with the Indian diamond market which accounts for 52% of our sales of rough diamonds," he commented.

BDB Vice President Mehul Shah, who is responsible for the Bharat Diamond Week project, said that once a stranger enters the BDB, he is no longer a stranger but a member of the BDB family. “The Bharat Diamond Week was created to uplift the lower and middle segment of the diamond business, and we are committed to strengthening the SME sector," he added.

In conjunction with the main event, there was also a special display of synthetic diamond detection machines as well as on site facilities for checking diamonds created using the Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) method.

Pic caption: Dignitaries on the dais at the Inaugural Ceremony on Monday