OREANDA-NEWS After the imposition of sanctions against Russian diamonds, the European Union faced a drop in revenues from their exports by a quarter in January-April of this year - up to 2.5 billion euros, according to an analysis by RIA Novosti of the association's data.

So, in the first four months, the EU sent 2.5 billion euros worth of diamonds abroad, compared to 3.34 billion a year earlier. The main drop was in non-industrial diamonds - their sales sank by 791 kilograms, to 2.5 tons.

The main reason for the decline in sales is the drop in imports, since the EU itself does not extract these stones. Thus, the total volume of imports decreased by 29%, to 2.66 billion euros.

At the same time, as with exports, the main blow fell on non-industrial diamonds - their import decreased by 1,065 kilograms, or 890 million euros. As a result, 1.8 tons of these stones worth 1.2 billion euros were imported.

About a third of the dropped volume was accounted for by Russia, against which "diamond" sanctions have been in effect since January 1 this year - in four months last year, the European Union purchased 377 kilograms of non-industrial diamonds from Russia. The UAE has reduced exports to the EU by 303 kilograms, and Canada by 234 kilograms. Significant volumes also fell out of supplies from Angola (-80 kilograms) and China (-66 kilograms).

The European Union, in cooperation with the G7 countries, has banned the import of rough Russian diamonds since January 1. Since March 1, Western countries have also begun to gradually restrict imports of Russian diamonds processed in third countries. However, the day before, the EU clarified that it had postponed for six months (until March 1 next year) the introduction of a mandatory diamond certification system, which should ensure compliance with the ban on the import of precious stones of Russian origin.