Diamond Hub Surat Aims for Global Success as Head Office Opens Tomorrow » Today Latest Stories

New offices larger than the Pentagon opened on Sunday in Surat, bolstering the city’s ambitions to become the world’s diamond capital.

The Surat Diamond Bourse in Gujarat, which has an area of ​​6.7 million square meters (620,000 square meters), became the largest office in the world when it was completed in July for 32 billion rupees ($384 million). The US brand opened in 1943 and has 6.5 million seats.

The building in Surat will be inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The opening of the bourse will also boost other efforts by Prime Minister Modi’s administration to boost Gujarat’s economy, for example by cutting red tape to make it more business-friendly.

While Mumbai has long been the center of India’s diamond trade, Surat, also known as the “Diamond City,” dominates the gem industry, and about 90 percent of the world’s diamonds are cut and polished there before being processed. sold to consumers in places like the US and China. The new Bourse aims to establish business under one roof.

“Surat is a very expensive place and the diamond exchange is slow,” said Eli Izhakoff, honorary president of the World Federation of Diamond Bourses. “Global merchants can conduct business from a secure and centralized location with confidence.”

The new building is located within the Diamond Research and Mercantile City, a business district modeled after the Gujarat International Finance Tec-City, or Gift City, one of Prime Minister Modi’s flagship projects. It has nine 15-story towers and approximately 4,700 offices. About 130 offices are already in use, according to Nagjibhai Sakariya, President of Surat Diamond Bourse.

SDB also expands the Israel Diamond Exchange, which has 80,000 square meters. However, the Tel Aviv building only has more than 1,000 offices, but also has services such as insurance, banking, post office, customs office, entertainment, food and places of worship.

Historically, Surat was one of the most important links between India and countries like Britain, Netherlands and Portugal due to its proximity to the coast of the Arabian Sea. It was replaced by the rise of Bombay as a port in the 17th and 18th centuries.

His diamond industry began operations nearly six decades ago and grew exponentially after Australia’s biggest investment and India’s economic reforms in the 1990s. Mumbai, about 280 kilometers (174 miles) to the south, remained a trading center because of its good connectivity with the rest of the world.

Surat continued to grow as a center for diamond production, as migrants continued to flock to the city from across the country in search of polishing work. The industry suffered a major setback in 1994 after an outbreak of pneumonia in the city and workers fleeing Surat. After the problem was brought under control, Surat underwent major reforms in terms of governance and infrastructure, and today it is known as one of the cleanest cities in the country.

Today, in Mahidharpura, Surat’s largest bazaar, houses line the desks of jewelers under bright lights, and some spill out onto the streets as they sell diamonds on cotton paper. Traders often walk around the city with stones tightly wrapped in white paper or small bags sewn inside their shirts.

SDB is facing challenges in bringing all businesses under one roof. In Surat, businessmen working in the bazaar who have cheap capital may not want to move to a shiny new office. Mumbai’s Bharat Diamond Bourse faced growing pains in its early years until a 2011 terrorist attack near the city’s diamond district and the closure of a museum forced businesses to move to new offices in the downtown Bandra-Kurla Complex.

Some diamond businesses in Mumbai may also feel resistance to moving to Surat. Although the cost of living is lower there and the number of businesses in this new bourse reduces the need to leave, the bourse is outside of Surat and has little to do with local amenities or entertainment. Surat is also well connected, with its airport serving only one international flight, to Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates.

Geopolitics adds another challenge. Most of the diamonds produced in Surat come from Siberia, and the industry was disrupted after the US imposed sanctions on a Russian diamond miner following the country’s seizure of Ukraine. The Group of Seven embargo on diamond sales to Russia will go back into effect on January 1, after a halt by diamond exporting countries and pressure on the industry.

A recovery in consumer spending in the US and China may be key to reviving the diamond trade, Sakariya said, but added that the recent slowdown is part of the trend.

“Companies are used to it,” he said.

(Except for the headline, this article has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from an aggregate source.)