Australia's diamond production for the quarter ending June 30, 2010, stood at 2.669 million carats – a 489% leap over the corresponding period last year, the Australia Bureau of Agriculture and Resource Economics (ABARE) reported this week.



Turning to diamond trade, diamond exports – including industrial-grade diamonds – comprised 2.845 million carats valued at US$100 million for the quarter. This marks a sharp contrast to Q4 2009, in which Australia's diamond industry exported 583,000 carats of diamonds worth a combined $76 million. Imports for Q4 2010 totaled $105 million.

Nevertheless, the data from ABARE indicated that total diamond production for the entire 2010 fiscal year was still down 27% compared to 2009 – 11.135 million diamonds produced compared to 15.169 million.



Exports for all of fiscal 2010 totaled 10.355 million carats, a decrease of 36% from fiscal 2009, and the export value dropped 49% to $345 million.