The mass production of cheap synthetic diamonds, along with the decline in China’s marriage rate, were analyzed as the causes of the natural diamond price plunge.
On the 23rd (local time), the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported that the value of diamonds is plummeting worldwide, with wholesale diamond prices falling by about 40% over the past two years.
“Customers these days are looking for more affordable products,” said Vivian Wu, owner of a Shanghai-based diamond company. “Newlyweds often look for smaller gemstones to fit their shrinking budget or request artificial diamonds that cost one-tenth the price of natural stones,” he said.
The global diamond market is rapidly being reorganized as Chinese consumers increasingly seek out natural stones and Chinese factories produce large quantities of synthetic diamonds. Last year, the global synthetic stone market size was $15.3 billion (about 22 trillion won), and China is the world’s largest producer, producing about 95% of it.
Synthetic stone has a quality that is difficult to distinguish from natural stone, but its price is only 10% lower.
A woman in Shanghai who purchased synthetic stone earrings earlier this year emphasized that they are cost-effective, saying, “It is difficult to distinguish them from natural diamonds, but the price is only 300 yuan (about 60,000 won).”
Economist Rajiv Biswas said, “China’s diamond market size is $9 billion (approximately KRW 13 trillion), the second largest in the world after the United States, but it has cooled due to the falling marriage rate and economic slowdown.” He added, “As prices have fallen for several years, diamonds are not worth investing in. “The reason is that awareness has expanded,” he analyzed.
China is currently suffering from low marriage and birth rates.
According to the Chinese government, the number of marriage registrations from January to September this year was only 4.75 million. It decreased by 16.6% compared to the same period last year, which is less than half of the figure in 2013, 11 years ago.
(Seoul = Newsis)
Source: www.donga.com
