The government of the Central African Republic has called on the global diamond trading regulatory body, Kimberley Process to lift an export embargo on the nation’s diamond. The country’s Minister of mines reiterated the call on Tuesday, November 12.
Following a ban imposed in 2013 since the civil war, the Central African Republic (CAR) on Tuesday called for the global diamond trading regulatory body to lift its decade-long export embargo. This call came as the multilateral trade scheme, Kimberley Process (KP), led by the United Arab Emirates, kick-started its plenary assembly in Dubai.
The call comes after years of violence and instability. According to the nation’s minister of Mines and Geology Rufin Benam Beltoungou the government of President Faustin Archange Touadera is committed to peace and the nation meets the criteria for lifting the embargo, stating that the security situation has improved and traceability requirements have been met.
For the first time since 2015, KP experts assessed the situation on the ground where they visited mining sites to ensure compliance with international standards aimed at preventing the export of “blood diamonds.
Diamond is one of the main natural resources of the central African Republic accounting for the nation’s main income.
With the CAR’s gem-quality diamond and gold deposits being vital resources, the impact of sanctions has been significant as in 2011, the CAR earned 29.7 billion CFA francs (about $50 million) from diamond exports, but in 2023, this figure dropped to just 324.3 million CFA francs.
Luc Florentin Simplice Brosseni Yali, director general of the KP’s permanent secretariat in Bangui, stated that sanctions should have been lifted after the constitutional order was restored in March 2016, but only partially lifted in 2015. Currently, one-third of the CAR’s diamond mining zones are “green” zones that can export, while the others remain sanctioned.
Let’s recall that during the last UN General Assembly, President Faustin Archange Touadera called for the complete lifting of the embargo, asserting that the country is now “relatively stable.”
