From La Stampa
In the Turin daily newspaper a report from Antwerp, the city of diamonds.
GIANLUCA PAOLUCCI SUBJECT TO ANTWERP
“A gift from God”. Don’t try to talk about the wonders of nature with a diamond trader. Jewish or Indian Jain, one of the (few) Flemish Protestants left or the latest arrivals, the Russians of Orthodox faith, for a diamond trader the rarest, most beautiful and precious stone in the world is always “a gift from God”. David Wahl has been trading stones for 42 years, as his father did before him and as his son will do later. An Orthodox Jew, in his office on the sixth floor of the Antwerp Diamond Ring – the Exchange specializing in rough diamonds – he receives customers and suppliers by turning stones over on the table, passing them between his fingers and looking at them with a quick and attentive eye before naming a price. If a deal goes through, for David and everyone else, a handshake and a word are enough: mazal (good luck in Hebrew, but it is the formula used by everyone regardless of religion, ed.) to close deals of even tens or hundreds of thousands of euros. The diamond market is based essentially, if not exclusively, on trust, explains Alberto Osimo, a Milanese stone dealer who regularly gets his supplies from Antwerp. The Belgian city, with its four diamond exchanges, 2,500 registered dealers and a network of cutting centers, security services, shipping and processing is the world’s main marketplace for the trade of these stones. In an area of 2.5 square kilometers, two streets closed to traffic and full of cameras, police and private security guards, 75% of the world’s production of rough diamonds and about 60% of the worked ones passes. A global market worth 22 billion dollars a year according to research by Boston Consulting that accounts for 6.5% of Belgium’s GDP.
The rest of the article: www.lastampa.it/2012/11/25/esteri/alla-borsa-di-antversa-una-stretta-di-mano-vale-un-diamante-WcK30yPyL0kidN308VacUP/pagina.html
