DUBAI MULTI COMMODITIES CENTRE

§  Total 34,000 carats of diamonds sold at a value of over US$ 7.2 million

Dubai, UAE; February 01 2011: The Dubai Diamond Exchange (‘DDE’), a subsidiary of Dubai Multi Commodities Centre (‘DMCC’) and a leading global diamond trading platform, recently hosted the first polished diamond auction of its type in the Middle East. The event was held at the iconic Almas Tower and organised by Diasqua DMCC (‘Diasqua’), a dedicated diamond trading company specialising in polished diamonds. The event sold over US $7.2 million in polished diamonds at auction.

The hugely successful event attracted over 130 attendees from 60 diamond-registered companies. Included amongst these were diamond dealers, suppliers and manufacturers from countries such as India, Belgium, Hong Kong, Japan and Thailand. The event took place over three days, between the 18^th and 20^th January 2011. The auction was exclusively for polished diamonds of various sizes and qualities with the largest diamond being 21 carats in weight. In total, 34,000 carats of diamonds were sold on the day.

Diasqua is a registered member of the DDE and was able to take advantage of the infrastructure, value added services and regulations provided by both the DDE and DMCC. The auction was conducted in the state-of-the-art Almas Conference Centre. The DDE is an international diamond trading centre that accommodates every aspect of the diamond trade, and allows manufacturers, dealers and other participants in the diamond value chain to effectively operate from a transparent, secure and sophisticated platform.

DDE has played a significant role in facilitating diamond trade through Dubai, with total diamond trade volumes increasing to US$16.3bn in the first half of 2010, this is up from US$7.6bn in the first half of 2009.*

*These statistics are provided by the Dubai Customs Strategy and Corporate Excellence Department Statistics Section for import and export data.