In the year 2009, Alrosa’s production amounted to 34.7 million carats of diamonds, making it the world’s largest producer of diamonds, in the said year, reports say. De Beers mined 24.6 million carats of diamonds in the same 12 months.

Last year De Beers had cut production by 91 percent in the year’s first quarter, while its production for the full year of 2009 amounted to nearly half of its diamond production in 2008.

The Alrosa mined output in 2009 valued $2.34 billion, reports add. Last year, Alrosa sold about 41 billion of diamonds to Russia's state precious minerals repository, the Gokhran, reports add.