The new center will replace polishing in Israel and Belgium, thereby aggravating the diamond crisis in Israel.
Lev Leviev is heading a group of Israeli diamond merchants and businesspeople for establishing a new diamond-polishing center in Angola. The agreement is scheduled for signing shortly. The center’s business will amount to hundreds of millions of dollars a year.
Up until now, Israeli diamond merchants have purchased diamonds in Angola, and taken them out of the country for processing, mostly in polishing centers in Israel and Belgium. Leviev is the largest diamond franchise holder in Angola.
Exporting the diamond from Angola as finished products will significantly lower the cost, owing to the use of cheaper labor in Angola for polishing.
The contracting company for the project, which is on the verge of signing the contract, is E.S.I., a Nigerian company represented in Israel by Adv. Amiram Ben-Yaacov, who declined to respond to the report. A spokesperson for the Leviev group said, “The group is considering the project, but it won’t get started tomorrow morning.”
Published by Globes [online] - www.globes.co.il - on March 29, 2004