Japan’s Preference for Higher Value Diamonds Continues

(IDEX Online News) – After the pre-holiday season restocking phase in September and October, Japan’s polished diamond imports eased to $62.1 million in November. Since the natural disasters that hit Japan in March, the country’s interest in diamonds has been growing, rising 7.5 percent year-over-year in the past month alone.

The volume of imports was 131,812 carats, declining 30.5 percent from the prior year. This indicates a shift to higher value items and last minute special orders.

Further underscoring this, the $471.10 per carat average value of imports in November are a 54.4 percent year-over-year increase, outpacing the global increase in diamond prices of 19.3 percent as indicated by the IDEX Online price index.

Compared to October, imports declined by more than 30 percent in value and volume, a natural cyclical change.

In the first 11 months of 2011, Japan imported nearly 2 million carats worth $781.9 million, an 11.8 percent decline in volume and 21.9 percent rise in value, based on figures published by Momozawa & Co., Inc.

Source: Momozawa & Co., Inc.

Source: Momozawa & Co., Inc.