Yuan Dips, Diamond Rises

18/08/2015 10:43

At the end of last year, China became the world’s second largest diamond consuming market. More Chinese people not only buy diamonds as a luxury, but also hold them as an investment. In the international market, the price of white diamonds has increased around 160% in the past ten years. But in China, prices of some diamonds in retail stores have remained almost unchanged compared to a decade ago. Michael Huang from Diamond Index Group says that since diamond prices are US Dollar denominated, the gradual increase of the exchange rate of the Renminbi against the US dollar is part of the reason that diamond prices in China have increased only slightly in recent years. But things have been different for the past several days. "In the past several days, the Renminbi has depreciated against the US dollar. As far as I know, the prices of some diamonds have already increased 5% over the several past days," Huang said.