By Alessandra Galloni
DAVOS, Switzerland (Reuters) -Botswana’s new President Duma Boko said on Thursday that he hoped to clinch a long-delayed diamond sales pact with Anglo American (JO:) unit De Beers imminently.
Boko told a Reuters NEXT Newsmaker interview at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, that his government was in agreement with De Beers on most issues and that all that remained was “just tidying up”.
“I’m hoping it is tomorrow. I mean it literally,” Boko said, asked when the government planned to sign the sales deal.
Botswana, the world’s top diamond producer by value, and De Beers in 2023 agreed a new sales pact, but it was never signed under Boko’s predecessor Mokgweetsi Masisi.
Boko secured a shock election victory late last year, when voters in the Southern African country kicked out the party that had governed them for nearly six decades.
Botswana owns a 15% stake in De Beers and has been trying to increase the share of rough diamonds it gets from its joint venture with the company.
Anglo American is looking to divest De Beers as part of a broader restructuring of its sprawling business, and Boko reiterated on Thursday Botswana’s position that it may increase its stake in De Beers.
“We’re looking to see if we can get a bigger slice of De Beers, and that also is subject to negotiations,” he said.
Botswana’s diamond-dependent economy is projected to have contracted last year because of a sharp downturn in the global diamond market, but officials are hoping for a rebound this year.
