Zimbabwe central banker stockpiles gold to bolster ZiG currency
The ZiG - short for Zimbabwe gold — is the nation’s sixth attempt at having a functioning local currency in the last 15 years.
Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe has promised to sell diamonds from his country’s controversial Marange mine ”sanctions or no sanctions”, and the country that would be his biggest customer, India, is being urged by the industry there to buy Zimbabwe stones outside the international framework.
The issue of Zimbabwe selling stones will dominate the agenda at a Kimberley Process – the international protocol designed to stem trade of conflict diamonds – meeting that begins Monday in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The Sydney Morning Herald reports:
The Age revealed last month that India, the world’s largest diamond trading hub that exports 95 per cent of the world’s cut diamonds, is being infiltrated by illegally mined conflict diamonds. Diamonds mined in Africa are smuggled into India by plane or boat, where they are cut and polished, and essentially laundered, turned into clean diamonds for sale on the world market. Traders in India’s diamond capital Surat said up to 10 per cent of India’s $26 billion diamond market could be conflict stones.
