Varda Shine, Philippe Mellier address gathering at DMIA Meeting

The General Membership meeting of the Diamond & Importers Association of America (DMIA) unfolded on the theme "An Evening with the De Beers Group," with a gathering of over 300 diamond and jewelry industry members at the Gallery & Auditorium at Manhattan's Time & Life Building. This event was held on January 8th. Philippe Mellier, Chief Executive Officer of the De Beers Group; Varda Shine, Executive Vice President, Global Sightholder Sales; and Stephen Lussier, Executive Vice President, Marketing, presented an address on "Diamond Equity and the De Beers Group." In this perspective, the executives spoke in broad terms about the company's long term capital investments in relation to the expected rough supply and demand in the downstream markets.

Noting that De Beers invests significant efforts in understanding the consumer taste, thus helping their downstream clients gain insights on how the various categories of polished diamonds are expected to perform. They spoke of the need to preserve and protect the integrity of the supply pipeline by upholding the highest ethical standards, and that De Beers is expected later this year to introduce testing tools in particular for the screening and identification of smaller sized synthetic diamonds that have been encountered in the polished diamond market. Also, efforts to stimulate market demand will be through a focus on the Forevermark brand, and De Beers Diamond Jewellers - its retail joint venture with LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton.

DMIA president Ronald Friedman said, "De Beers was very engaged and this was a win-win occasion, for this leading, global producer and supplier to the market as well as for the US industry and trade."