Africa-Press – Botswana. Minerals and Energy minister, Bogolo Kenewendo, says legal changes are due in the next Parliamentary sitting that will formally recognise the differentiation between natural diamonds and synthetics in Botswana.
“We have been lobbying and discussing with our partners around the world on what is needed for differentiation. “As we were busy engaging partners, we also realised that our legal framework here needs a lot more tweaking to accommodate the changes that we are asking the industry to do. “In particular, the focus of differentiation that defends our natural diamonds is required. “one is to ensure that our definition of rough differentiates between synthetic and natural diamonds.”
One of the ways the legal changes will distinguish the two is in terms of weight descriptions, she said.
“We will save the weight for natural diamonds as carats and use grammes for synthetics. “These are in line with the works that we have been doing around the world. “Some of these changes are already enacted in Europe, in the US, and so forth. “We want to consolidate all of these efforts and then be able to truly lead the industry and other natural diamond producers in the world towards what is it that can help us to further differentiate and therefore defend our natural diamonds, said Kenewendo.
The Minister is currently touring the Gemmological Institute of America (Botswana) headquarters. GIA is the global diamond grading institute.
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