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De Beers Exec Says Market’s ‘Fragile Recovery’ Is Different from the Last Time

Published

7 years ago

May 18, 2016

INSTORE Staff

Economic instability may give rise to different consumer behaviors, exec cautions.

Uncertainty in the global economy, particularly in China, has De Beers CEO Philippe Mellier tempering expectations for a rebound in the diamond market, the Financial Times writes. Speaking with the news outlet, he says “it’s a very fragile recovery. The market is not going to bounce back like it did after the last big problems,” referring to 2009 when the diamond producer cut production after the financial crisis.

The article says that De Beers again reduced output last year amid a decline in prices, but now Mellier is seeing a rebalancing of supply and demand. “My view is that we have seen the market bottoming,” noting that diamond stock levels are “very close to normal and polished prices stabilized around December.” He cautions, however, that “there’s still a lot of instability out there in the macroeconomic environment … which could trigger different consumer behaviors.”

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