Q. Should the Kimberley Process be redefined to include potential human rights problems regarding the treatment of diamond prospectors, now that trafficking of conflict diamonds has essentially ceased?
A. I don’t think we need to redefine it; instead I think we should explain that the Kimberley Process is so strong and sustainable that diamonds are now all clean. We could talk about the rights of the prospectors, but that has nothing to do with the existence of blood diamonds, it is instead about human rights violations. Nevertheless, we might need to keep explaining what the Kimberley Process is, so that people understand it better.
Q. What is the current state of mining projects in Angola?
A. We are still in the phase of promoting new mines, and we want to carry out campaigns to attract the big mining companies in order to promote our potential for new projects.
We have only carried out geological surveys that cover 40% of the country, which means we have to bring in the big mining companies that can help us carry out prospecting campaigns to identify new reserves of diamonds. We used to think that only the North and South Lunda provinces had diamonds, but now it looks like the whole country might have them. It is more a question of which provinces don’t have diamonds! Angola has the responsibility of communicating this to the world.
The number of alluvial diamonds we have found is so large, and their quality is so good, that now we have to find the kimberlite pipes that produced them. This is assuming all the alluvial diamonds came from kimberlite pipes. We are sure there are lots of diamonds in Angola, so we just need to find investors who can help us carry out studies to determine what our soil contains.
Q. What incentives are there to attract investors, in addition to the existence of so many kimberlite pipes in the country?
A. We have always offered very good incentives. The fact that we have always had investors here, even during the war, is a sign of that. Our mining law has always contained incentives for investors.
Now that we are at peace, the law can be further improved and we are working on that right now, finishing up a mining code that will include more attractive incentives for investors. The new law will be closer to other such laws around the world.
Q. Another important goal of the government is to add more value to the resources the country produces. Angola already has a facility to process some diamonds, but what other possibilities exist in this area?
A. The facility we have now is not yet adding as much value as we had hoped; we are still working on that to reach the level we originally intended, and then after that to be able to process diamonds into gemstones. We are carrying out a study to see if it would be more profitable to produce jewelry in Angola or to partner with a jewelry maker in another diamond-producing country.
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