Surat to be one stop destination for diamond professionals

India had achieved the distinction of having the world’s largest office building which is much bigger than the Defence headquarters Pentagon in United States for past eight decades with setting up of the India’s gen capital at Surat in Gujarat.

The Surat Diamond Bourse would soon become the one stop destination for more than 65,000 diamond professional, including cutters, polishers and traders. The impressive 15 story complex spanning over 35 acres, the Diamond building features unique design of nine interconnected rectangular structures emanating from central “spine”.

It is interesting to note that the building has been designed in such a manner that 50 percent of its cooling needs are met through natural ventilation while solar energy is used to power communal areas. This shows that where there is political will, any district or any part of the state can be developed into a high profitable and business centre. Surat city which was once considered to be not so clean is today the cleanest city. Till recently, it had diamond industry which has been meeting the requirements of more than 90% of well finished diamonds across the world which was using rudimentary tools. Now, Surat is poised to bring in a turnover of over Rs 2 lakh crore annually.

This centre will help not only in promoting imports and exports and trading of diamonds, Gems and Jewellery from India but will also generate over 1.5 lakh new jobs and will add to the 8 lakh odd jobs already being provided by the Surat diamond industry.

Such a major centre was overdue since Surat has been a major cutting centre. Seeing the new centre being launched, Eli Izhakoff, honorary president of the World Federation of Diamond Bourses commented, “Dealers from all over the world can do business from a secured and centralised place with confidence.”

Another interesting aspect of the Diamond Brouse is that it dwarfs the Israel Diamond Exchange, which covers 80,000 square meters. But then the SDB is not free from challenges. Bringing all the business under one rood is not an easy task. There are apprehensions among the small traders that if they shift, their overhead costs would go up. Similar problems were faced by the Mumbai’s Bharat Diamond Bourse in the past. It was the 2011 terrorist attack and the closure of the customs services building accelerated the move by businesses to new offices in the suburban Bandra-Kurla Complex.

Some Mumbai-based diamond businesses may also show resistance to move to Surat though the cost of living is lower there and the concentration of businesses in the new bourse will reduce the need for commuting since it lacks entertainment facilities and has no international flight connectivity, It only has one international flight to Sarjah available from Surat.

Another major problem it may face is Geopolitics. Many of the diamonds processed in Surat originate from Siberia. But the industry there suffered as the US placed sanctions on a Russian diamond miner following its attack on Ukraine. This war between Russia and Ukraine also led to ban by group of seven nations on Russian Diamond imports.

But on the brighter side, it will avoid businessmen from Surat to travel to faraway places to examine and buy raw diamonds which is not free from hurdles during travel to foreign locations. The issues related to supply and value chain also used to impact the diamond business.