The Antwerp World Diamond Centre (AWDC) welcomed the new minister of mines of the Democratic Republic Congo (DRC), Antoinette N\u2019Samba Kalambayi and the General Directors of the Ministry\u2019s two main diamond institutes, the CEEC and SAEMAPE, on a working visit to Antwerp.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
During a meet-and-greet with several stakeholders active in the DRC, AWDC renewed its Memorandum of Understanding with the CEEC, the Centre for Expertise and Evaluation of Precious Minerals of the DRC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAfter the visit of DRC President, Felix Tshisekedi, in 2019, direct imports of DRC rough in Antwerp jumped from 27% of DRC\u2019s total exported volume in 2019, to 51.5% in 2020. Renewing this MoU will allow us to continue this collaboration, including capacity building in the DRC, and facilitating sales of the country\u2019s rough diamonds via Antwerp,\u201d AWDC President Chaim Pluczenik commented, during a closing dinner attended by Antwerp Governor, Cathy Berx and Alderman for diamonds, Peter Wouters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A second MoU, concluded between the AWDC, the CEEC and SAEMAPE, the governmental institute charged with streamlining the DRC\u2019s Artisanal and Small-scale Mining operations (ASM), outlines the fundamentals of a \u201cmine-to-market\u201d pilot programme, to set up a blueprint for a digitally enabled, fully transparent value chain for small-scale and artisanal, responsibly mined diamonds, to be developed over the course of the next years in the DRC. N\u2019Samba Kalambayi, the first female mining minister of the country, welcomed the initiative, remarking that the DRC is the world\u2019s largest producer of ASM diamonds. \u201cFormalisation, transparency and value addition for DRC\u2019s mining communities, is a primary objective of the DRC government and the ministry of mines in particular\u201d, she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Antwerp World Diamond Centre (AWDC) welcomed the new minister of mines of the Democratic Republic Congo (DRC), Antoinette N\u2019Samba Kalambayi and the General Directors of the Ministry\u2019s two main diamond institutes, the CEEC and SAEMAPE, on a working visit to Antwerp. During a meet-and-greet with several stakeholders active in the DRC, AWDC renewed its…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12261,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[83],"tags":[],"thb-sponsors":[],"class_list":["post-12258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bulletin"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n