By Jennifer Harrison
HRA Group of Companies president and CEO Uri Ariel has spent 30 years working in Canada and has been involved in the Canadian diamond industry since its inception.
From the day BHP Billiton Canada Inc. opened Canada’s first diamond mine, EKATI, in 1998, and started providing Canadian diamonds to the Canadian market, the HRA Group has been manufacturing and distributing those gems for the retail and wholesale jewelry markets.
Ariel spoke to BIV about the unprecedented growth of Canada’s diamond industry and his predictions for the future.
The Canadian market was a small market globally and 10 years ago became the third-largest producer of rough diamonds. This is something the global diamond industry had never seen before, going from zero dollars to $3 billion in 11 years. So, this definitely put Canada on the map.
The Canadian consumer cares where the products are made and this is very important in luxury products such as diamonds. There is full transparency in Canada today when the consumer is buying the product. Here you get an authenticity certificate of the product, from mine to market. This model was so well received in Canada that other countries are now trying to implement the same model in their diamond industries.
The investment in the infrastructure and the investment in the product is a very large one. The market is going up and commodities are going up, and we bring a value to the consumer.
It is a challenge from our perspective to compete in the global market where people are taking their production to China and India and paying workers there less. Our companies are working in Canada under stricter Canadian laws so it is difficult to compete.
We have a huge opportunity here in Canada. We are one of the few places in the world where new mines are coming up. We have now two mines, Gahcho Kue [DeBeers Canada Inc.] and Shore Gold [Star Diamond project] coming in, along with the Stornoway [Diamond Corp.] mine. I don’t know yet the exact total value of what will come from these mines but this will for sure put Canada to number two in the world in diamond production. So, it will be Botswana at number 1, Canada at number 2 and Russia, number 3; and all of this done in 11 years.
The new mines will bring more rough diamonds to the market, which will provide room for us in the secondary diamond industry to continue to grow. We are the only company today in Canada that has three factories, one in Sudbury, one in Yellowknife and one in Vancouver. For us this is a huge, huge opportunity, with the new mines and the companies that have beneficiation policies we will continue to get [priority] and our allocation will grow tremendously.
The demand for Canadian diamonds is behind in other continents and even in the U.S. So for us, we are planning to launch a program to continue to grow in Europe and Asia. We are opening a new office in Milan and in Hong Kong to give service to our customers in the Far East. This is basically to increase and satisfy demand for Canadian-produced diamonds. Compared to other productions, Canadian production is considered very clean and is very well-regarded.
As a Canadian company, I am very proud to compete with the global competition and with a low environmental impact. Because we work so hard and support our clients in good times and bad, this is why we feel our market is very stable. And our customers are very loyal and happy that the market grows bigger and bigger on a monthly basis.
Today – I don’t know about tomorrow – we are the first one in the market to be audited by SGS for the Responsible Jewellery Council. We will be the first major diamond manufacturer certified by this process in the world under the concept of social responsibility.
Our company is also being audited by KPMG. We believe in full transparency. Our customers will have all the information they need and the company is leading in our industry in this transparency we bring to the market.
We make it a policy to be involved in every community in which we are working; we bring investment to the community and this is a big part of our success.