N. whereas both the Seleka and the anti-balaka armed groups profit from the timber and diamond trade by controlling sites and ‘taxing’ or extorting ‘protection’ money from miners and traders, and whereas CAR traders have purchased diamonds worth several million dollars without adequately investigating whether they were financing armed groups;

In response, diamond producing countries, companies and traders, along with NGOs and representatives from the diamond industry, convened in Kimberley, South Africa, in 2000 to create a plan to prevent diamonds from continuing to fuel conflicts.

The European Community is by far the largest trader in rough diamonds. More than 60 % of the global annual production passes through the European Community.

Once the Kimberley process gets up and running, though, I think we will find that many people who are engaged in the trade in rough diamonds will have a considerable amount of difficulty in marketing those diamonds.

It is expected that all countries producing and trading rough diamonds will participate.

Does the Commission stand by its statement of 16 January 2003 provisionally permitting the operation of the new system, where it stated categorically that, ‘. given remaining concerns that the SoC system could be used to artificially reduce supply, namely of high quality diamonds, and considering that the implementation of SoC has not yet taken place, the Commission will keep a close watch on the market .to ensure that the system does not lead to a restriction in the supply of adequate quantities of rough diamonds to traders’, .and that it ‘reserves the right to reopen the case should changes in the factual or legal situation as regards ...[+++]any essential aspect of the agreements modify its present view.’.