Give Us This Day...
April 16, 20
"We're not dealing in bread or milk. We're dealing with an item which is not an essential item to buy."
That's one perspective on an industry at an indefinite standstill.
They're the words of Sanjay Shah, a partner in Mumbai-based diamond jewelry manufacturers KBS. He's not expecting a recovery any time soon.
"The demand will be more than a year and a half or two years from now," he told the Financial Times in an interview this week.
He's right, of course. Bread and milk are daily purchases. Most people outside the industry buy a diamond a decade, if that.
But it's a livelihood for a lot of people. There are an estimated 10 million working worldwide either directly or indirectly in everything from exploration and mining to cutting, polishing and high street sales.
Each of them, and their families, are being impacted by coronavirus. In Canada more than 500 workers from the Renard mine remain at home, even though the authorities in Quebec have allowed work to resume. Owners blame a depressed market, and can't say when they'll reopen. It's a similar story at Petra Diamonds' Williamson mine in Tanzania, Firestone Diamonds Liqhobong mine, in Lesotho, Blue Rock Diamonds' Kareevlei mine, in South Africa… the list goes on.
In Surat, India, more than half a million diamond workers haven't cut or polished a stone since 24 March, when the world's biggest lockdown, affecting 1.3bn people, came into force, and that's now been extended until at least 3 May.
Stores of every size, from the family-owned jewelry business to multinational chains have been shuttered, sales at every level have come to a virtual halt, hit by social distancing, travel restrictions, and lockdowns.
Government furlough schemes, benefits and business rescue packages will provide some with a lifeline, but many are individuals are suffering now and many companies may not survive.
Mr Shah wasn't wrong when he put the need for diamonds well down our list of priorities. Psychologist Abraham Maslow famously created his Hierarchy of Needs, putting our physiological requirements for bread, milk and the like at the top, and diamonds nowhere at all.
But in the hard world of commerce - rather than the soft world of psychology - diamonds are a $80bn industry, bread $200bn and milk $450bn. Diamonds may not be the biggest, or most vital, but they're a decent-sized player and when a plague hits, a workforce the size of Greece or Portugal suffers. The diamonds themselves may not be essential, but the industry is.
And in spite of all the doom and gloom above, there are some glimmers of hope. Some of the wealth created by diamonds is being used for good. Look at the $1m donations from jewelers like Graff and Tiffany to fight the virus, or, in another league, the billion rand ($53m) each from Nicky and Mary Oppenheimer, from the De Beers family fortune.
And despite bricks and mortar stores being closed, the internet remains open for business. Some diamonds are being traded, and although they can't be shipped, the number of deals has been rising in the last week and prices have been creeping up.
So in spite of everything, I'll end off with the traditional IDEX farewell - Have a fabulous weekend.