Senior representatives of The Gem & Jewellery Export Promotion Council (GLEPC) recently held detailed discussions with a visiting delegation from Rio Tinto on a host of important industry issues including generic promotions and synthetic diamonds. The GJEPC team was led by Praveenshankar Pandya and the Rio Tinto team by Simon Farry, VP, Sales & Marketing, Copper & Diamonds.

Also present at the meeting were Ashok Gajera, Sanjay Shah and Manish Jivani from GJEPC and Patrick Coppens, GM, Sales and Vikram Merchant, Director, India Representative Office of Rio Tinto.

Pandya made a brief presentation on some of the recent activities of GJEPC. He spoke about the generic promotion campaigns that had already been planned with the DPA and De Beers, as well as the fact that Council was discussing the possibility of doing similar promotions with Alrosa. He urged Rio Tinto to formulate some promotional plans that could be taken up along with GJEPC in markets such as China, Vietnam etc.

After briefing the visitors on the success of the IDTC / SNZ for the viewing of rough diamonds, Pandya focused attention on the issue of synthetic diamonds. He reported on the Natural Diamond Monitoring Committee (NDMC) set up in India to check the undisclosed sale of synthetic diamonds, and the study was being taken up on the synthetic diamond industry in association with Bonas & Co.

Referring to the recent unveiling of GII’s Quick Check Machine to detect HPHT synthetic diamonds, Pandya said that the GJEPC was in the process of installing this machine at all Regions of the Council. Rio Tinto expressed an interest in the Quick Check Machine.