Diamond sales at the Okavango Diamond Company declined 16% to US$ 260 million during the first six months of 2018 as compared to a year earlier, news agency Reuters has reported. The state-owned company in Botswana is contracted to sell 15 percent of production from the DeBeers – Botswana government JV, Debswana each year.

The report quoted ODC’s managing director Marcus ter Haar as saying that the decline was due to the fact that last year’s H1 sales were at record levels. He told the media that the company sold 1.778 million carats in the first half of 2018 compared with 1.808 million carats in the same period last year.

According to the report, the official said that favourable conditions in the rough diamond market had helped ODC generate healthy sales despite a dip in volumes as compared to the earlier year. Sales were driven by customers from the USA and the Far East.

The outlook for the second half of the year was not as favourable, Ter Haar said, due to the expected cyclical downturn in the market, which had just begun. The seasonal swing will have a dampening effect, he opined.