DUBAI MULTI COMMODITIES CENTRE

Dubai, UAE; April 6, 2011: The Dubai Diamond Exchange (‘DDE’), a subsidiary of the Dubai Multi Commodities Centre Authority (‘DMCC’) and a leading global diamond trading platform, today announced it has issued invitations to the Kimberly Process (‘KP’) stakeholders to attend a meeting in Dubai. This meeting will follow the African Summit, which will be held in conjunction with the World Federation of Diamond Bourses Presidents (‘WFDB’) Meeting, taking place from 11-13 April 2011.

This special meeting will discuss the export and import of diamonds from Zimbabwe and, in particular, from the Marange area.

Peter Meeus, Chairman of the Dubai Diamond Exchange comments:

“We are proud to be hosting the WFDB Presidents meeting in Dubai and thought it opportune to use the occasion to bring the stakeholders of KP together in order to discuss, amongst other items, the export of diamonds from Zimbabwe.  We applaud the KP Chairman for trying to find a solution to this important industry issue and we hope the meeting will allow members to air their opinions and for KP stakeholders to reach a consensus on this issue.”

In March this year, the KP Chairman, Mathieu Yamba from the Democratic Republic of Congo, authorised the resumption of the export of Zimbabwe diamonds. However, a consensus amongst all KP members needs to be reached before such a decision can be implemented>

Background

The Kimberly Process was initiated by South Africa in May 2000 to create an international certification scheme for rough diamonds in order to prevent them from being traded illegally. The UAE is one of 48 member countries and the only Arab country to have signed up to the KP.

In June 2009, the KP Review Mission was sent to Marange due to concern about widespread illegal mining, which concluded that Zimbabwe was in non-compliance with KP minimum requirements. In November 2009, a joint-work plan was agreed to bring Zimbabwe into compliance with minimum KP standards.