Head of the Geological Survey Bureau of Mines, Geological Science and Technology in China, Hai-Tao Fu, said over the weekend that the newly discovered diamond deposit in Wafangdian, in the Liaoning province, is unlikely to affect the global market significantly despite its substantial size, Rough&Polished reported.



The website quoted Xiong Xianzheng, chairman of the Dalian Jewelry Association as saying that, “Global diamond output amounts to approximately 100M carats annually while China accounts for 200,000 carats of the above output. Rough output from new mines in Wafangdian might account for 50% of China’s diamond output. Volumes of diamond production in China, even taking into account the new mines, will achieve merely 0.21% of the global output therefore the deposit will not affect global rough prices.”



The deposit discovered in Wafangdian is said to be the largest scale discovery made by Chinese geologists in the past 30 years. The mine's reserves are estimated at 210,000 carats of gems including diamonds.