DDC president addresses 2010 China Diamond Conference

A talk by Moshe Mosbacher, President of the Diamond Dealers Club at the 2010 China Diamond Conference in Shanghai, touched upon the growth of today’s leading new market, China, exhibiting similar growth patterns as that of the ace global market (until the recession) - US. He exemplified the growth in China’s diamond market with the early development of the diamond market in the United States, ‘and as such the role of the Shanghai diamond center most closely parallels that of New York,’ he said.

"I believe that, in many respects, the business models that have been developed in my city and my country over the past several decades are particularly applicable to Shanghai and the Peoples Republic of China," Mr. Mosbacher said.

Similarities were drawn also between - New York being the business hub in the US and Shanghai in China, just like the US has a Diamond Dealers Club of New York, the Shanghai Diamond Exchange was the first diamond bourse in Mainland China, and the official point of entry to China’s diamond market. Mr. Mosbacher said"What set the U.S. economy apart from others throughout most of the past century is the fact that its life blood is its own consumer market. To this very day more than two thirds of the U.S. GDP is represented by American consumer spending." He opined that such a pattern to focus almost exclusively on its domestic market ‘soon will characterize Shanghai’. " McKinsey's research suggests that Chinese consumer consumption as a share of GDP will only approach the 40 percent mark by 2025, but that alone will result in a middle class in China that is approximately double the size of the one in the United States today," the DDC President stated. "The bottom line for a diamond center like Shanghai, therefore, is similar to the one that we are reminded of daily in New York - it is all about the local consumer and local consumer confidence," Mr. Mosbacher said.

He also highlighted the need for diamond companies to focus on defending consumer confidence as ‘critical’.