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Bullion analyst Madhu Sudan Daga notes that the use of platinum group metals (PGMs) like rutheniu and iridium and dangeroud metals like cadmium as soldering alloys, is still prevalent in the country. "Rutheniumis cheaper than gold and blends very well with the precious metal, making it impossible to detect even when the fire assay method is used. It can only be detected when very expensivew spectrographic analysis is used", he says, adding, "perhaps it would be best to adopt the Thailand hallmarking model. There, hallmarking is not compulsory and the retailers are free to mark their jewellery in the kartage of their choice. However, once that is done, the jewellery has to conform to that quality. Any deviation means instant expulsion from the trade body, plus a jail term and a hefty fine".

Daga also propounds the formation of an all-Indian representative trade body, which should be empowered to invoke harsh penalties on unscrupulous traders including the ability to confiscate a traders licence to sell gold. Daga notes however, that there shoud be an apparent and real benefit to jewellers who conform to the stipulated norms. "After all the ten-tola bar virtually vnished when the government reduced import duty on serialized and pre-numbered gold bars to Rs. 100 per 10 gms. This made authenticated pure gold bars abundantly available in the market and killed virtually all demand for the non-authenticated domestic product. a similar initiative linking a benefit to the trade to conform to quality could work wonders", he adds.
Currently, however, hallmarking in India, for all practical purposes is not available to the mass market. Indian consumers of the most part have to resort to trusting one or the other retailer to sell jewellery that actually conforms to the claimed karatage. Even the export production industry is affected. All jewellery exports from India are mandatorily checked at the port of entry of their destination countries because of he lack of a standardized, national hallmrking system. Instituting such a system will allow India to become a signatory to the Vienna Covbvention that grants an automatic waiver of all such inspections to member countries. Hallmarking is a necessity for the country's jewellery industry, say experts and a national hallmarking system will just have to be implemented. The sooner this is done, the better.
The diamond mining industry worldwide depletes one kimberlite pipe every year without finding a replacement, said Alexander Nichiporuk, president of Russian diamond major lrosa, while addressing the 32nd World Diamond Congres. Nichiporuk said, "In practice, Alrosa mine between 30 and 33 million carats of diamonds every years, which equals one kimberlite pipe going out of operation with no simultaneous entries to compensate for the exhaustion. According to our estimates, other producers are in the same situation in the long run."

With regard to this problem, Bnichiporuk said that among Alrosa's priorities was to ensure an "improvement in mineral basis". He said the Russian firm had started mass-scale exploration activities in Yakutia and in the northwest of Russia, as well as in Africa. "We are developing joint exploratio projects with other companies both in Russia and abroad", he said adding, "At present we are building four unerground mines to keep up production. Al in all, we plan to construct simultaneously, five underground production facilities". He went on to say that Alrosa was looking for new technological solutions to put low -grade kimberlite pipes into production that were considered to be unfeasible in the past.

In different ways, various speakers as well as the WFDB and the IDMA collection stated that among the top priorities for the industry were the issues of consumer confidence - specifically countering the negative imagery generated by movies such as the Leonardo DiCaprio -starrer Blookd Diamond as well the uncertainty generated by the influx of synthetics into the global market.

The IDMA, in a post -conference press release, said, "The gathering focussed specifically on issues that influence the position of manufacturers in the diamond business and more generally on measures necessary to enhance consumer confidence in duanibds." IDMA president Jeffrey Fischer focussed on the issue in his post conference communications (see interview). The president also stressed IDMA's commitment to the Kimberly process adnits system of warranties.

The WFDB used the congress as the platform to launch its WFDB mark that is intended to convey confidence to industry and consumer alike that users are dependable people with a high code of ethics. Ernest Blom, the new WFDB president, continued on the theme of confidence in his post - conference wrap-up speech. After everything the industry had done to ensure that things were right he said, there was still "much talk about conflict diamonds, money laundering, etc." and went on to tackle the issue head on (see box).