A special UN panel monitoring economic and political development in Liberia has issued a report on the Liberian diamond mining and diamond industry saying that during the first four months of 2009, the African nation exported an estimated $2 million worth of rough diamonds at a total of 2,500 carats, Rapaport News said.

The panel indicated that the average per-carat value of the rough diamonds exported from Liberia showed significant improvement from previous times, mainly due to the high quality of the diamonds mined and exported.

The report also said that 15 Kimberley Process certificates were issued and that the Liberian government raked in over $59,000 in royalties from diamond sales during this period.



Since Liberia was readmitted into the Kimberley Process in May 2007, the government has issued 34 diamond-dealer exporter licenses, 16 of which were valid as of February 2009, and 11 were active class B diamond mining licenses issued for industrial alluvial diamond mining activities.