The Union Minister for Commerce & Industry; Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution and Textiles, Shri Piyush Goyal chaired a meeting with the representatives of Lab-Grown Diamonds Industry today in New Delhi.
Discussions on promotion of Research and Development, setting up enabling common facilities and skilling of adequate manpower to serve this emerging sector took place. Currently, India contributes around 15% in global production of lab-grown diamonds for which it is presently self-sufficient. However, keeping in mind the future potential, there is a need to maintain technological self-reliance in production of machinery and a leadership position in production lab grown diamonds. Given India’s expertise in diamond polishing, it is imperative that India positions itself firmly in the lab-grown diamond sector too since the process of polishing are similar. The projected employment creation could be to the tune of 25 lakh by the year 2025.
Lab-grown diamonds are diamonds which are grown inside a lab using cutting-edge technology that replicates the natural diamond growing process and the result is a man-made diamond that is chemically, physically, and optically the same as those grown beneath the Earth’s surface. Lab-grown diamonds can be created by two processes – High Pressure High Temperature (HPHT) which is used in China and Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) which is used in USA and India.
Besides jewellery industry, lab-grown diamonds are also used in computer chips, satellites, 5G networks as they can be used in extreme environments as it has potential to operate at higher speeds while using less power than the silicon-based chips.
Like natural diamonds, India has proved its leadership role in the cutting and polishing of lab-grown diamonds. India’s exports of polished lab-grown diamonds were USD 274 million, USD 473 million, USD 637 million and 1293 million during 2018-19, 2019-20, 2020-21 and 2020-21 respectively. Annual growth during the same periods were 72%, 35% and 103%.
India exports polished Lab Grown diamonds to USA, Hongkong, UAE, Israel and Belgium etc. USA accounts for around 67% of India’s exports followed by Hongkong with a share of 14%.
Shri B.V.R Subrahmanyam, Secretary and Mr Vipul Bansal, Joint Secretary were present in meeting. Industry was represented by Mr Colin Shah, chairman GJEPC, Mr Sabyasachi Ray, Executive Director GJEPC, Mr Samir Joshi Executive Director Indian Diamond Institute Surat, Mr Pramod Agarwal, chairman National Gem & Jewellery Council of India and other Industry representatives.