Moshe Schnitzer, president of the Israeli National Diamond Exchange in Ramat Gan, compared the growth of the diamond industry in his country to “the history of Israel itself.” It is something “we are proud of in the diamond cutting industry and I think justly so, ” he said.
Schnitzer, who recently was elected president of the International Federation of Diamond Exchanges, made his remarks today to some 1100 persons attending a meeting of the Retail Jewelers Association of America, where he was guest of honor.
He described how Israel’s diamond industry was begun from scratch by Holocaust survivors. Exports grew from $5 million in diamonds in 1949 to more than $1 billion in 1977, Schnitzel noted. The projected figure for this year is $1.5 billion. He said that Israel cuts approximately 55 percent of all rough diamonds in the world. (By Reena Sigman Friedman)
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