Angola has more than a million carats of diamonds in storage, waiting for the market price to improve so that they can be sold, the chairman of the board of the Angolan National Diamond Company (Endiama) said today.

José Ganga Júnior, quoted by Angolan news agency Angop, was speaking yesterday in Dundo, the capital of the diamond province of Lunda Norte, at the opening of the three-day meeting to take stock of diamond production.

According to the president of Endiama, the Angolan state diamond company, "in practice Angola is without buyers of this resource," to regularly absorb the production levels of the last six months.

"The market situation is not very good at the moment, which is reflected in companies' operating costs. That's why we have to find ways of surviving, using the creativity that is needed," said José Ganga Júnior.

He stressed that Endiama is still undergoing a restructuring process, in all its aspects, in order to better serve the country and supervise diamond companies.

According to José Ganga Júnior, the Angolan state diamond company also intends to move from a purely administrative company to a productive one, so that by 2024 Angola will have a geological-mining sector, particularly in the diamond chain, that is stronger and capable of giving strength to the national economy.

The diamond companies will present their production balance for the last five years, the operational situation for the first half of this year and an economic and financial analysis.

In the first half of this year, Angola pocketed 711.7 million dollars (651.8 million euros) from the export of almost 4.6 million carats of diamonds, representing a decrease of 2.8% compared to the same period last year, with the production target for this year set at 12.41 million carats. (Lusa)