Angola has allowed 16 diamond exploration firms to
resume operations. This comes just five months after all diamond explorations
in the country were halted during the government “Operation Transparency”. Incidentally,
the operation also saw the closing of 279 diamond trading stores for what was
termed as failure to declare their sales to the concerned state organs.
According to media reports, the exploration licenses were issued by the state-owned diamond company, Endiama, for the provinces of Malanje, Bié, Lunda-Norte and Lunda-Sul. Each cooperative was granted 200 square kilometers for exploration. Furthermore, the licenses are renewable every two years.
Earlier this month, Endiama said it expects to make about US $1.5Bn from carats sold in 2019.This will be an increase compared to US $1.25Bn from 8.47m carats sold in 2018. Speaking at this year’s Africa mining Indaba, Endiama, which produced 9.4m carats last year, said that it expects to produce 9.6m carats in 2019. In 2018, the company was the world’s fifth largest diamond producer by value.
