According to Indian media, the BDB will consider lifting its long ban on lab-grown diamonds after an all-trade body, the National Diamond Monitoring Committee, releases its upcoming report.
Mehul Shah, vice president of the BDB, said, “BDB is not against lab-grown diamonds, however we need to protect our members and buyers coming to BDB so that they buy genuine products.”
Shah explained that while synthetic and natural diamonds have many similar properties, as products they are “entirely different”, pointing specifically to the lack of re-sale value for synthetic diamonds.
“The BDB remains a centre for natural diamonds and our 6,000 members deal in natural diamonds only,” he added. “There are approximately 100 who deal in lab-grown diamonds in Mumbai. BDB has power to penalise wrongdoers and has taken actions [in the past] including lifetime suspension.”
However, Shah later clarified that any change to the existing policy would need to be voted on by members of the BDB.
The ban first came into effect in 2015.
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