In December 2012, Japan noted a drop in the volume of its polished diamond imports, while in value terms the said imports stood flat on y-o-y basis. Value of polished diamond imports stood at $67.8 million, while in volume terms it was down by 32 percent ‎to 132,004 carats, reports say. The average price of the polished diamonds imported was up 8 percent to $514 per ‎carat, reports add.

In terms of region-wise imports into Japan, polished diamond imports from Hong Kong and the U.S. soared more than three times, with imports from Hong Kong valuing $8.3 million and from the U.S. they stood at $6.3 million. Also, there was an increase of 13.2 percent in the polished diamond imports from Belgium which stood at $13.4 million, while from India the said imports dropped 10 percent to $29.2 million, and from Israel it slipped 58.9 percent to $4.2 million, in the month, reports suggest.