2007

The Future of New York

March 2007

The Diamond Dealers Club recently had a two day "Grand Market Week" that featured a number of seminars about the diamond industry. The event was a big hit and seemed to attract a lot of people.

At one of the seminars, Ken Gassman, an industry analyst, said that diamond dealers were facing consolidation, and were going out of business at much the same rate as independent jewelers.

That may be true, and many are worried about the New York industry’s long-term viability. But New York is still the center of the diamond industry in the United States and in some ways the world, especially when it comes to larger stones. As a cutting center, it is being overshadowed by low-cost centers like India and China, just like other traditional centers like Antwerp and India are. But the United States is still the world’s leading diamond market, and New York will always be the "gateway" to that market.

A recent editorial in the New York Observer noted that the city had fully bounced back from Sept. 11, with real estate values rising 19%, at the same time the rest of the country is in a slump. We believe that New York’s diamond industry, like the city itself, will prove itself resilient and be around for a long time.