By: Martin Creamer

14th October 2009

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JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Demand for diamonds was "most probably" outstripping supply and, as a diamond producer, De Beers was wanting to produce "as many diamonds as possible", De Beers chairperson Nicky Oppenheimer said on Tuesday.

Oppenheimer, speaking on CNN to Fareed Zakaria, said that the Chinese and Indian people were showing a "tremendous desire" to own diamonds and that the two countries would be "tremendously important" diamond markets in the future.

While China and India were "very exciting places" for diamond sales, the US continued to account for one-half of the diamond retail market.

"What one's seeing at the moment, is that everything shows that the demand for diamonds is most probably outstripping supply, and so, as a diamond producer, we want to produce as many diamonds as possible," Oppenheimer said.

Of the days when De Beers was disallowed from being on US soil, he said that the world had changed since that prohibition had been imposed and so had De Beers, which was no longer in a position to control the world diamond market.

On the link between diamonds and poor governance in Africa, which had resulted in being diamonds being referred to as a "resource curse", Oppenheimer conceded that there were countries in Africa where diamonds had been sold to fund civil wars, and confessed to enjoying the film Blood Diamond as an adventure story, but said that in reality only a very small proportion of diamonds had been used nefariously - "5% at the very most".

The diamond industry had reacted admirably to counter that threat with the Kimberley Process, which ensured that diamonds bought on the high street could not have funded conflict.

He held up Botswana as an example of a country that had been built on diamonds and added that Botswana was not the only example of African countries which were growing and which were becoming more transparent and dem