KGK to produce diamond jewellery with Mupane’s gold

Mbongeni Mguni | Monday September 25, 2023 06:00

The firm, a subsidiary of the iconic 118-year-old Indian group, opened its doors in Botswana in 2014 with a focus on cutting and polishing rough diamonds, before launching its jewellery plant in January this year.

From 45 employees at inception, KGK Diamonds Botswana now has more than 500 workers.

Siddarth Gothi, KGK Diamonds Botswana assistant manager, told BusinessWeek that the company approached Mupane Gold directly after trying and failing to secure Botswana origin gold from different suppliers.

Mupane, located outside Francistown, is the country’s sole gold producer.

“At the point of inaugurating this jewellery factory in January, we had promised President Mokgweetsi Masisi that we would beneficiate Botswana gold here and within nine months we have been able to achieve this target, which is a major milestone for us and the country,” he said in an interview on Tuesday.

“So, we gave the task to Mupane Gold Mine and asked our refiner to refine this Botswana gold and give us the Botswana-origin gold for our jewellery manufacturing. “This Botswana-origin gold is beneficiated through our jewellery factory where we craft it into beautiful pieces of jewellery and export it from Botswana. “We have also trained and groomed Botswana designers and are supplying Botswana jewellery from here, jewellery designed and manufactured by a Motswana.”

This week, KGK capped 200 graduates who underwent an extensive cutting and polishing certification course. At the graduation ceremony, group officials stressed KGK’s commitment to employing the graduates. Of KGK’s 500 local workers, around 300 were trained from scratch and plans are underway to further expand the jewellery plant to employ a “few hundred more jobs,” Gothi said.

KGK Diamonds Botswana is finalising its second export of diamond jewellery directly to the United States, having become the first firm to achieve the milestone earlier this year. The exports are made under the African Growth and Opportunities Act (AGOA) a US legislative arrangement giving Botswana and more than 30 other African states relaxed access to the world’s richest market. The US accounts for about 54% of the global market for diamond jewellery, a large slice of a pie worth about $80 billion annually.

“We are expecting more orders and currently we have some samples that we are developing for them and once these are approved, we will have volume orders from the US. “That first order has developed the trust of the client in KGK Jewellery that we are able to give them the quality and the timing as per their requirements. “That’s the most crucial thing you need in order to get repeat orders. “We have been proved to be one of the best quality products that has been sent to the US through this,” Gothi said.

He explained that by falling under the AGOA deal, locally produced diamond jewellery had added advantages for US consumers.

“At the end of the day, it’s the value to the customer who is going to buy a piece of diamond jewellery in the US without paying import duties, as opposed to products from other eastern countries where the client will be charged full duty on that,” the assistant manager told BusinessWeek. “That’s the preferential access of being in Botswana.”

Botswana-sourced diamonds – and now gold – are slowly making their mark globally as more consumers deliberately seek out ethically sourced jewellery in the wake of the sanctions against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. Gothi revealed that KGK Diamonds Botswana’s products also underwent a series of audits and other checks in order to be rated as a compliant supplier by the major US entities who want Botswana-origin jewellery.