Thailand Overseas Investment Center

Namibia Sees De Beers Diamond-Sale Deal by End-December

Namibia plans to reach a new diamonds-sales deal with Anglo American Plc’s De Beers unit before the end of December, Mines and Energy Minister Isak Katali said.

Namibia and De Beers,equal shareholders in Namdeb Diamond Corp., are negotiating for a new sales agreement to replace a 2007 pact that allowed Anglo to sell gems through Diamond Trading Co., the trading arm of De Beers, until the end of 2013. This was extended until June. Namdeb, the world’s largest producer of marine diamonds, wants to sell some of the stones separately from De Beers.

“Negotiations are progressing well. We them to conclude before end of December,” Katali said by phone today from the capital, Windhoek . “Cabinet has given us as a deadline, it’s not out of the normal.”

Namdeb’s production rose 6 percent to 1.176 million carats in 2013, with two-thirds of that coming from marine mining operations.

To contact the reporter on this story: Felix Njini in Windhoek at fnjini@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Antony Sguazzin at asguazzin@bloomberg.netAna Monteiro, Indranil Ghosh

Cr:http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-11-12/namibia-sees-de-beers-diamond-sale-deal-by-end-december.html

Cr pic :http://www.truenaturephoto.com/2010/smf/gallery/namibia/Namibia_39.JPG