Over the last two months, teams from the Kimberley Process have visited the Central African Republic (CAR) and Venezuela to explore the possibilities of resumption of rough diamond exports from these countries. While the former visit took place in early March, the latter visit concluded last week.

 In a letter sent to all KP participants on April 14, the KP Chair, Ahmed Bin Sulayem has informed the members that the KP Monitoring Team that visited CAR from March 1-4, 2016 has, in its report finalised on March 18, declared that the Berberati Sous-Prefecture in CAR is a ‘Compliant Zone’.

Even as the KP Monitoring Team (MT) is in process to agree on the team’s monthly inspections of export shipments from Berberati, the KP Chair has stated that the same will also be communicated to the UN.

The letter also stated that the KP Chair had mediated with CAR’s minister of mines, Joseph Agbo, and convinced the country’s largest buying house (Sodiam- Ed) to withdraw their earlier decision to cease operations.

As a temporary measure until the Intersessional, scheduled to be held in Dubai in the third week of May, the UAE will – on the request of the WGM chair – take over the lead of the CAR MT from the US.

While no official announcement has yet been made about the Venezuela visit, media reports from that country indicate that the visit has been positive. The country’s Vice-Minister for Mining, Richard Lozada has been quoted as having said that the country is now a few steps away from rentering KP.