Zimbabwe to cut diamonds in Gabarone

Bulawayo24, an online news service, reported that Zimbabwe has agreed with Botswana to start processing its diamonds at the Diamond Trading Company (DTC) in Gaborone. The agreement was reached during a high-level summit of the Zimbabwe-Botswana Bi-National Commission (BNC) in Harare in February.

To implement the agreement, DTC diamond experts are to visit Zimbabwe this month. According to the reported agreement, Zimbabwe will ship its diamonds to Botswana for cutting and polishing.

The news service quoted Eric Molale, Botswana's Minister of Mineral Resources, Green Technology and Energy Security, that Botswana had agreed to offer Zimbabwe its full expertise in the diamond sector.

"We have set up a technical team that will be coming here this month to determine the scope of the work that has to be done in that area. We believe that at the end, it will be a win-win situation. We have the world-renowned Diamond Trading Centre and we want Zimbabwe to take part in that centre. We need to help them to meet the standards of our trading centre, so the important thing is that they should learn first from our centre," Molale was quoted.