Whiteflash-Diamond Playground

From The Parliament - The European commission has admitted there is “room for improvement” in global efforts to combat the trade in so-called ‘blood diamonds’. A major, four-day conference in Brussels was told there had been significant progress in the Kimberley process, the international scheme designed to end the trade in ‘conflict diamonds’. But, in a video message to the launch of the event on Monday, EU commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner conceded that more needs to be done to tackle the problem. As current chair of the process, the commission is hosting the event’s annual conference in Brussels. During the week, around 300 delegates, including ministers, officials, industry and civil society representatives, will meet to review efforts in diamond trading, cutting and polishing centres to exclude conflict diamonds. Ferrero-Walder, who is responsible for external affairs, said, “We knew that taking on the chairmanship would be a challenge but we can now see some of our hard work paying off with substantial programmes underway in a number of countries to improve internal controls. “The lifting of UN sanctions against Liberia and its admission into the process is a real milestone and shows what teamwork can achieve.” She said that while the commission had worked to address the underlying causes of conflict in diamond-producing countries and to carry out a reform agenda agreed last year, there was still “room for improvement”. The Kimberley process is named after the South African town where, seven years ago, negotiations started on finding an international solution to ways of preventing diamonds from being used to finance wars or falling into the wrong hands. Partly as a result of its efforts, it is now estimated that less than one per cent of diamonds traded are ‘conflict diamonds’ compared to 15 per cent during the 1990s. Europe has a major interest in the diamond industry since it is the biggest diamond trading centre in the world and more than 80 per cent of the world’s rough diamonds pass through the Belgium port of Antwerp. The conference is expected to devote much of the week to the one remaining case of conflict diamonds, namely those originating in Cote d’Ivoire.