09 Apr 2024

Debswana deputy managing director, Mr Koolatotse Koolatotse has appealed to Botswana’s Heads of Missions to assist in selling the country’s diamond story to the international markets.

He said the envoys were critical stakeholders in sharing the impact that diamonds, as Botswana’s economic mainstay, continued to make towards the transformation of citizens and the country’s development in general. 

Mr Koolatotse, who was speaking during the envoys’ tour of Jwaneng mine on yesterday, underscored the need to collaborate towards marketing Botswana’s diamonds in their respective missions, particularly at a time when diamonds were competing with alternative products such as synthetics.

“We consider you to be critical stakeholders because you reside in countries where we market and sell our product. This is therefore the opportune time to meet and share the diamond story so that you can proceed to market our diamonds to the world, and you came at the right time when diamond prices have gone down. We appreciate you and your support in this regard because you are better positioned to market our product since you are the final stage of our diamond chain,” he noted.

He further said plans were underway to establish diamond corners at various missions, which would elaborate the diamond story from production to its contribution and impact on human and social development. 

The diamond corners would also be equipped to take people through virtual tours of Botswana’s diamond mines.

However, Mr Koolatotse noted that it was equally important to align the diamond story with the attributes of a diamond, to give it a human feel. He said diamonds in nature represented love and respect, hence it was imperative to incorporate these in Botswana’s diamond story as fed to the world.

Botswana’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Office in Geneva and Ambassador to Switzerland, Dr Athaliah Molokomme said clear and transparent information sharing would go a long way in propelling the Botswana diamond story to the world. She said as critical stakeholders, they would consider incorporating it into their next strategy as they geared towards developing annual plans.

She said they were not only elated by Jwaneng Mine operations, but the overall socio-economic impact that diamonds continued to have on Botswana and her people. 

“My colleagues and I are elated by the commitment of our people and government towards the production of diamonds to impact lives in this manner. We are ready to contribute towards the marketing and communicating the wonder that is our diamond story to the rest of the world,” she said.

For his part, High Commissioner of Botswana to India, Mr Gilbert Mangole said the mine tour was an eye opener which put clarity on the diamond market segments as distributed across the world. However, he regretted that Botswana’s diamonds had a low global market share in India. 

Consequently, he underscored the need to intensify efforts to market the diamonds to the Indian market, to counter synthetic diamond marketing, which had adverse effects on raw diamond sales.

“We need to be aggressive in selling our diamonds to the Indian market because the Indian government is currently aggressively promoting synthetics,” he noted. ends