Diamond Trade: A Big Talking Point For India & Israel

The Diamond trade and investments may attest to be larger conversation points for India rather than defense during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Israel. The three day stay starting Wednesday is the first ever by an Indian Prime Minister and is widely anticipated to axis on greater collaboration in joint defense ties owing to India’s position as the largest buyer of Israeli artillery and defense technology.

However, India will also set in motion tough to increase deal and nest egg with the nations which have remained standing in spite of greater connections between the private sector in both countries in current years. Discussion are expected to center on how to collaborate on the beneficial diamond polishing and meting out trade, a senior government official said under conditions of mystery.

Mutual deal stand at $5.02 billion in 2016-17, increasing 2.3 per cent in 2016-17 after four successive years of fall. This involves $3.06 billion of exports and $1.96 billion of imports. The raw non-industrial diamonds form severely on both the sides of buy and sell, generating more than one billion dollars to both imports and exports.

As India is the major exporter of refined diamonds in the world, sending out more than 75 per cent of the world supply, Israel is the second largest.

Israel, for long has been the top exporter of the shiny gems and diamond, stones to the United States of America — the world’s major market for diamonds — which has recently been overtaken by India. Israel has established great costs which are encouraging their businesses to send over small raw diamonds to India for processing. In the nonattendance of a job working policy, the country is losing out on these contracts which are moving to China and Vietnam worked upon, after which they are sent back. Labour charges are paid by the primary country. The Middle-East mainly on diamond exports which make up nearly 24% of its export account by value. Improved sourcing vital to the energy sector are also being sought by India which receives more than 20 per cent of the mineral from the Middle Eastern nation.

Conferring to diplomatic sources, the mid-level firms in these areas such as solar are looking to partner with Indian companies. Likewise, the Indian corporations are also fascinated in teaming up with Israeli equivalents for research and development. On this note, the nations are all set to validate an arrangement to produce a $40 million joint fund for advancing industry relations which will focus on setting-up of innovation centres. While both the republics will share the load; half the budget over the next 5 years, the figure will be divided equally between the government and the private sector.

Meetings on the proposed India-Israel Free Trade Agreement may also crease steam during the Mr. Modi’s stopover. The agreement had been hard-pressed by Israeli President Reuven Rivlin during his visit to India back in 2016.