Angola Elected as Vice Chair of Kimberley Process For 2014

(IDEX Online News) – Angola was elected Vice Chair of the Kimberley Process for 2014, at the KP Plenary session in Johannesburg on November 22. It will chair the organization in 2015.

The KP Plenary also voted to extend for another three years its agreement with the World Diamond Council (WDC), by which the Council will continue to manage the Kimberley Process' Administrative Support Mechanism (ASM).

"It is a proud moment for the Kimberley Process that a country which, once afflicted by civil conflict, has now regained political and economic stability and, as a consequence, is in a position to assume a position of leadership in the very institution that helped set it on its way to recovery," said WDC President Avi Paz.

Prior to the KP Plenary Meeting in South Africa, the WDC had declared its support for the Angola's bid to become KP Vice Chair.

Paz thanked the outgoing KP Chair, Ambassador Welile Nhlapo of South Africa, for his leadership of the KP this year, and welcomed Wei Chuanzhong, Vice Minister of General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine of China, who will assume the role of KP Chair in 2014.

The decision by the KP Plenary to extend the contract with the WDC for the management of the Administrative Support Mechanism for another three years means that the Council will continue to provide logistic, organizational and communications support to the KP Chair on an ongoing basis through four of its members - the Israel Diamond Institute (IDI), the Gem and Jewelry Export Promotion Council (GJEPC) of India, the Antwerp World Diamond Center (AWDC) and the Diamond House of the Government of Ghana.

The KP Plenary also decided to continue deliberating on how the definition of conflict diamonds may be expanded, so that it remains appropriate to the changing geopolitical environment.