The President of the Republic of Panama together with ministers and representatives from the diamond trade recently celebrated the launch of the Panama Gem & Jewellery Centre, a visionary commercial centre for the trade in the region that will house the Panama Diamond Exchange (PDE).

The function of the exchange will be to service the growing demand for diamonds and jewellery in the region that includes South and Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean.

Erez Akerman, President of PDE, stated that the approximately 750 diamond wholesalers in the area, who currently buy second hand or travel to existing bourses in other locations in the world, would finally have their own centre, drawing diamonds from New York, Antwerp, Tel Aviv, Dubai, Hong Kong and Mumbai.

Although the bourse has not yet started trading, it is expected to do so by the end of this year, where it will play an important part of the estimated wholesale turnover by 2017 of around $5bn, according to Eli Izhakoff, honorary president of the World Federation of Diamond Bourses, the World Diamond Council and the World Jewellery Confederation.

This promises an exciting future, especially as the Panama Diamond Exchange is the first and only diamond bourse in all of Latin America with membership in the World Federation of Diamond Bourses.

Moti Israeli is the member of Israeli Diamond Exchange.

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