Diamonds benefit the world in many ways than simply making their wearers look beautiful. An estimate claims that Africa, one of the poorest continents in the world, collects a whopping $9.65 billion from shipping its diamonds to worldwide markets.

That number has changed the destinies of countries like Botswana. One of the poorest countries in the world’s most impoverished region until the 1960s, Botswana is now one of Africa’s most prosperous, partly because the export of diamonds adds over $5.6billion to its national kitty every year.

People of other African countries also benefit from the diamond trade. Angola generates over $1 billion by exporting diamonds. Democratic Republic of Congo’s diamond mining industry employs over 200,000 people. South Africa, home to De Beers, collects $1.5 billion from its gems’ exports.

These numbers should convince investors who want to invest in the diamond sector to head to Africa. During the year in which the global diamond demand is set to hit $26billion, Africa’s under-utilized diamond sector is a potential gold mine for both local and foreign investors.

How to Access the African Diamond Market?

Here are five steps you need to follow to mine, refine, and distribute African diamonds:

Step #1: Determine the whereabouts of diamonds

The first step requires you to explore the location of diamonds. Almost all companies hire geologists to scan and identify areas where they can find diamonds. Once they are on the proposed site, geologists will look for several components to determine whether the area is fit for diamond excavation or not.

Step #2: Obtain Mining and Land Use Permits

Investors can file an application to get these permits, but given Africa’s governance structure, we recommend that you avoid this route. Instead, if you don’t want to get caught in bureaucratic red tape, hire a lobbyist. The best among them, like Lobbying Africa, have contacts using which they can get you all these permits within a matter of weeks.

Step # 3: Hire employees, draw contracts

To hire miners, you’d need to be in contact with local manpower agencies. It’s better if you delegate this task to a lobbyist as they have contacts on the ground, including with manpower agencies, using which they’d help you in building an experienced workforce from scratch.

Once you’ve identified the workers, the next step would require drawing employer-employee contracts. Typically, these contracts are prepared by an attorney at law. Most lobbying companies have such persons in their legal department whose help you can take to draw such agreements.

Step # 4: Mine and polish

After having experienced miners on your payroll, the required machinery that could dig the diamonds out of the earth’s crust and adequate storage facilities for diamonds – as well as innumerable other things which are beyond the scope of this article, you’d be in the position to start mining.

The mining phase is generally followed by the polishing of the diamonds, as rough diamonds aren’t worth that much in the global market.

Step # 5: Export your diamonds

To export diamonds to worldwide markets and generate eye-watering profits, a diamond mining company needs to have two things: overseas clients who are willing to purchase their products and the necessary paperwork that would let their diamonds get through int’l border control with minimum fuss.

Lobbying Africa will help you on both these counts. Since we specialize in Africa and have a separate legal department, we can help prepare documents using which the cross-border movement of your diamonds will be seamless. Also, we have contacts with diamond retailers from all over the world, which we can tap to locate a final destination for your product.

Conclusion

The only reason why we have stated success stories of countries who have changed their fortunes by exporting diamonds, and not that of companies, is because the latter are too innumerable to count. Provided you have the necessary capital to enter the diamond industry in Africa, there’s no reason why you should shy away from making this investment.

Learn more about Lobbying Africa, follow us @ LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.